The Shadow of War
by Eildon Rhymer
Summary: It's fourteen years since the fall of Sauron, and Gondor is at peace. But old enemies are stirring beyond her borders, and some have infiltrated Minas Tirith itself, and are waiting for the time to strike…
1. Shadow

**The Shadow of War**

 _It's fourteen years since the fall of Sauron, and Gondor is at peace. But old enemies are stirring beyond her borders, and some have infiltrated Minas Tirith itself, and are waiting for the time to strike…_

This is a long story, at 26 chapters (c. 155,000 words), but I've already finished writing it, and intend to post a chapter a day. It's a story told through many eyes. Aragorn, Pippin, Éowyn and Éomer are the main canon viewpoint characters, along with Mablung, Ranger of Ithilien. Faramir, Merry, Arwen, Gimli and Legolas also appear, but aren't viewpoint characters, merely because I had to draw the line somewhere or the story would have been never-ending.

However, war doesn't just affect kings, lords and famous hobbits, but ordinary people, too - ordinary people from both sides. Therefore I also use several original characters. Some are outsider viewpoint types, appearing for just one scene. Some stick around for longer. For three of them, this is their second appearance in a story of mine, but no knowledge the previous stories is assumed. All relevant background is explained at the time. For those interested, though, Mínir comes from Grey in the Dark and Daerion from A Captain and a Cause. Trials of Manhood is also very relevant, too. In fact, in many ways, this story can be seen as sequel to that story, even though it's set more than sixty years later. However, it's a sequel that doesn't require you to read the original.

* * *

 **Chapter one: Shadow**

From _The Shadow of War,_ by Hanion son of Hannor, loremaster of Osgiliath, F.A. 942

It started with a man. An enemy, they called him then, but history brings distance. It soothes the hatreds of the past, and urges us to see things dispassionately. Just a man, then; let us call him that.

Gondor was at peace, then. It was fourteen years since the fall of Sauron, and the world was full of hope. Little did the people think that their world was about to be rocked to the core! Because of that man, fear would soon stalk through the streets of Minas Tirith. Armies would march and battle would be joined. The safety of Gondor would be threatened as it had never been threatened since the coming of the king.

This was the dawn of a new age, and the world was changing. They were on the cusp, then, moving from a time of legends to the sober world of history that we now inhabit. Songs were made, but we also have books. There are tales of heroes, but there are also dry analyses of the facts. We hear the speeches of kings, but we also have letters from the ordinary folk, people whose voices had never before been heard.

So many were affected by the events of that summer. Some were major players, with the fate of kingdoms resting on their every choice. Some had smaller parts, but the lowliest player can make a difference when the moment is right. Others were merely witnesses, but even a witness can be changed by what they see. Sources we have in abundance, but we historians are a quarrelsome breed, and to those sources, we add our own voices, and we bicker endlessly about the significance of the events we describe.

But let us forget all that. Let us go back to the beginning.

It started with a man. It started with a man who tried to kill a king.

* * *

The assassin lay in wait beneath the rafters. His blade was newly sharpened, and a dozen arrows were lined up on the bale of cloth beside the window. He moved when he had to, pacing and stretching to keep his muscles limber, but his hunter's feet made no sound on the attic floorboards. The drunken weaver in the room below had no idea that he was there; no idea that he had been living here for days, waiting for the moment to strike.

He had no name. His childhood name had been set aside many years ago, and since then he had gone by many names as he travelled far and wide performing the will of his lord. But it was as a nameless stranger that he had lived in Minas Tirith. He had bought from market stalls and mingled with noisy crowds, but left behind no name that could be discovered after the deed was done. He doubted anyone would remember him. If they did, they could not identify him.

It was a disturbing place, this white stone city. At home, every man was owned by his lord, and every face was known. A lordless stranger who dared to wander within a mile of a lord's hall would be brought down with horse whips and dragged there in chains. But here in Minas Tirith, strangers were made welcome. The people boasted of being free: free to marry whoever they wished, and to travel from the city, no master to tell them no. Free to fritter their lives away like the drunken sot of a weaver, whose loft was filled with sacks of mouldering yarn, thick with dust. This king of theirs was a fool, who seemed to think that he could rule through trust. The people claimed to love him, but what use was love? Better to be feared. True obedience could only be given to a lord who had trampled you to the ground and drawn your blood.

Unbidden, his hand rose to his throat, where he still bore the scar from his own lord's knife: the only mark left to him now, since he had been forced to shed his brooch and his beads and anything else that could link him to his lord if they were discovered. It was a strange thing, a cold thing, to be so far away from the protection of your lord. But this was the task he had given. He had come to Minas Tirith, and the soft fools had let him in. It was not supposed to be an assassination, or so he had believed, just a gathering of intelligence, but a week ago, the orders had changed. When dropping his reports in the usual spot outside the city, he had found a scrap of paper, marked with the correct password, written in the usual code. Breathless, he had opened it…

 _Breathless_. He closed his eyes for a moment, remembering. He had burnt the paper, of course, but he could still see those jagged letters; could still read the stark command. Why would his lord want this done? Why now? What could this do but rouse the wrath of Gondor? Why…? No, it was not for him to question. It was just for him to obey. He belonged to his lord, body and soul, as all men should.

He would kill King Elessar. He would kill the King of Gondor as all the city watched.

His lord had commanded. What else could a man do but obey?

* * *

Aragorn ran his fingers across the smooth red velvet, rested the sleeve in his palm for a moment, then let it fall. The next robe was thick with gold brocade, rough against his fingertips. Beside it was a cape of sleek pale fur. There was silk, too: silver, dark red, purple, gold. He took a step back, and his shadow shifted, letting the candlelight fall upon the intricate carvings on the wardrobe door. The horses' eyes were set with garnets, and their riders' spears were tipped with gold.

Sometimes it seemed to him as if this was the strangest thing about being a king. Envoys and embassies brought him gifts, and it would be insult to refuse them. The lords of Gondor proudly presented him with robes made by their best seamstresses and goblets made by their finest craftsmen. His chamberlain had opinions on clothing fit for a king, and expressed them with his usual insistent deference.

A dozen years ago, he could have walked a thousand miles with nothing more than he could carry on his back. He had a chest at Rivendell, but seldom opened it. Another chest was with the Dúnedain, but that, too, went unopened for years on end. Other possessions came and went. When he had walked away from his life as Thorongil, he had done so with just a single pack. Some possessions he had given as parting gifts to the men who had served under him. Others he had left behind in his scantly furnished quarters. _What happened to those?_ he wondered suddenly. From that day until this, he had given them no thought.

Even now, there was so little here that he truly needed; so little here that he truly valued. More than there had been, of course: gifts from true friends and keepsakes of the dead; Arwen's banner; the heirlooms he had always carried and the heirlooms he had won.

But not all these. Not this.

He turned and walked away, leaving the room. Down the corridor he went, and into a smaller chamber, with simple decoration. His Rivendell chest was there, as were the few possessions he had brought from the north. His old pack was there, and the battered scabbard he had carried for so many years. And there was another chest, a new chest: a gift from Éomer, given with a smile.

Soft footsteps sounded on the floor behind him. Aragorn smiled, but did not turn round.

"You are doing it, then," Arwen said.

* * *

The banners were limp against the leaden sky. Horses were galloping on morning exercises; men with horse-hair plumes laughing joyously despite the dullness of the day.

"You'd think they'd get tired of it," Pippin said, as he tugged his jacket more tightly around him, struggling to fasten the buttons with one hand. The other held a newly fried potato cake, the fingers dancing away from it, one, two, three, as he tried to avoid getting burnt. "They're going to ride all day, after all."

"You'd think you'd get tired of eating," Merry said. His potato cake was resting on a slice of bread. Pippin thought he looked far too smug about it. "We have, after all, already had one breakfast today, and will doubtless have lunch in the saddle in…" He looked up at the sky, frowning at the faint lightening of the cloud where the sun ought to be. "Ooh, about an hour, I think." He took a bite of bread and potato cake combined. "But you don't," he added unnecessarily.

Pippin smiled in happy agreement. Giving up on the buttons, he reached for a hunk of bread, and dropped his potato cake onto it. He licked his stinging fingertips, savouring the grease. "Éomer's ordered a late start this morning. Very kind of him, and all that. But do these Riders of his have a nice lie-in? Do they do what any sensible creature would do and…"

"Have another breakfast." They said the words together, Pippin phrasing it as a question and Merry as the answer. When the laughter died down, Merry put on a serious face. "The Riders of the Mark," he said, "refuse to be educated when it comes to second breakfast."

"Or elevenses," Pippin said, shaking his head.

"I _have_ tried," Merry said sadly, and they sighed together over the heathen benightedness of Men, then laughed again.

Pippin finished his potato cake in four more bites. He looked at the empty frying pan and the dying embers of the fire. He frowned at his half-empty pack and back to the frying pan again, and wondered if he could be bothered to cook some more. Probably not, he decided, but there was still time for a smoke and maybe a doze. Pity the wall was damp, and the grass even damper. It was supposed to be warm in the south; warmer than at home, anyway. This appeared to be an old orchard, probably one abandoned during the ascendancy of the Enemy, and not yet tamed again.

"But it will be, soon," he murmured, as he reached for his pipe and stretched out his legs, wiggling his toes.

"What?" Merry was ahead of him, already breathing smoke.

"Tamed," Pippin said. "The countryside. Everywhere." He looked up at the apple trees, but it was too early in the season for the fruit to be ready. No-one would harvest it this year but birds, but next year, or the year after…? The haunted Greenway was already a swift, safe road. Weathertop was a watchtower again, and a place where travellers could rest in peace. The lands between Rohan and Gondor had changed since he had seen them in a terrified blur from the back of Shadowfax. There were roads and cottages, and crops where once there had been just waste. In another ten years, perhaps, there would be enough inns along the road for a traveller to make the whole journey without having to spend a single night outside.

"Yes," Merry agreed. He frowned, half-turned his head as if he had heard something behind him, then settled back down with a sigh. A magpie flew up from an apple tree, chattering loudly.

Pippin watched the magpie fly. "There's something so sad about a place that was once loved, but has fallen to pieces. Like Ithilien when Frodo and Sam were there. Like Osgiliath."

"I wonder how the rebuilding's going." Merry found a line of crumbs caught in a fold of his jacket, appeared to consider eating them, then brushed them away. "Osgiliath, I mean," he said, as he reached for the remains of the loaf.

Somebody shouted something, but Pippin could not hear what it was. A pair of Riders cantered in from the southern road, and Éomer's tent was almost struck, stowed on its wagon. Just one more night, Pippin reminded himself. A short day today, one more night on the road, another short day's journey, and then…

"But we'll find out soon enough," Merry said, echoing Pippin's own thoughts, as he so often did. "We'll be in Minas Tirith tomorrow afternoon."

Did Merry, too, feel a little nervous? Did Merry, too, wonder if one day, they would return to Gondor to find their old friends changed? Strider was _king._ With every year, with every fresh traveller's tale and every bard's song, it became ever clearer just what that _meant._ It meant so much more than hobbits had ever realised, with their throwaway comments about a distant, long-lost king. Power could change a person; could estrange them from old friends who had known them when they were humble. It brought expectations, too. When you had a title, people expected you to behave a certain way. Merry was Master of Buckland now: good old Merry, jolly old Merry with an old person's title. Pippin himself would be Thain before too many years were passed. He didn't know…

Merry's voice broke into his thoughts. "The bread will be softer in Minas Tirith, of that I'm sure." Merry was struggling with the over-baked loaf, failing to tear it apart with his thumbs. "I need a knife."

"Have mine," said a voice. Flanked by two cloaked figures, a man emerged from the apple trees, a sheathed dagger in his hand.

* * *

"Tomorrow," the assassin whispered to himself. Nothing had changed. Excited voices drifted up from the streets below. Tomorrow afternoon, the king of the horse lords was arriving in Minas Tirith, and King Elessar would greet him at the gate with full ceremony. And they would be there in their thousands, the fools, primping and preening in their finery, cheering their blind adoration of a king who had never bested them in single combat and commanded them by name.

It would have to be tomorrow. The weaver's loft had a broad window, thick with cobwebs and dust. It was not supposed to give a view of the square inside the Great Gate, but the mansion opposite was being rebuilt, its crumbling towers pulled down to be replaced with sparkling stone. He had sighted his arrows, sometimes, on travellers walking down to the Gate. In his mind he had let those arrows fly, and imagined the fools falling down, choking on their own blood. But he had not done so. Just sighting those arrows was enough. The range was good, and his aim was true.

 _But I cannot…_ he thought, just a stray cry from the part of him that felt so alone and far from home.

He could. He had to. He was a good marksman, of course, as all his people were, although he was far from the best. He had seldom killed. He was a spy, best at stealth and listening. The drunken fool of a weaver never stirred when he slipped down from the loft every night, and no-one saw him as he slipped through the streets, stealing food. He was…

"A killer," he said. "An assassin." His voice cracked. How long since he had spoken to another person in his own tongue? How long since he had spoken to someone in any language?

He would have to use poison. These men of Gondor liked their heavy armour, and this king of theirs had the friendship of the dwarves, with all their skill at metalcraft. But with poison, even a mere scratch on an exposed patch of skin could kill.

It had to. It had to.

His lord had given him poison, of course: a small vial of it, intended for his own use, if capture seemed inevitable. Better to die than to risk incriminating his lord under torture. Because of _course_ this King Elessar tortured his prisoners in the dungeons below the Citadel, even though the babbling fools of Minas Tirith claimed that such things were unknown in their "civilised" world. All lords did. All lords left scars.

If he failed, there was now no poison left for him. If he succeeded but was discovered, there was no swift, bitter way out. But there were other ways, he thought, looking at the glass window and the long fall below. There were other ways, he thought, eyeing his stolen blade.

There were always other ways, even if there was no way out.

* * *

Ah, but it was too long since he had done this!

Aragorn smiled down at Merry and Pippin's incredulous faces. Merry had dropped the loaf before Aragorn had finished drawing breath to speak. He was a hobbit, but he was a soldier, too, who just for a fraction of a moment, had been readying himself for an attack. But they had known it was him, of course, from the moment he had spoken. Without intending to, he had used his Strider accent, the voice he had used when they had first come to know him.

Gimli was laughing his own loud greeting. Legolas was more quiet, of course, but his fair face radiated gladness. "Strider!" Pippin leapt to his feet, but then he faltered, perhaps remembering that he was still a knight of Gondor, and he was now within his liege lord's realm. He was about to bow, about to call Aragon by another name, but Aragorn halted him with a smile and a raised palm.

"Nay," he said. "It was a contemptuous nickname when they gave it me, but it does my heart good to hear the name 'Strider' again on the lips of such friends. And today you are a guest of King Éomer, Pippin, and tomorrow and for many days after that, you will be my guest."

"Are you going to sneak up on Éomer, too, Strider?" asked Merry. The pause before the nickname was only a fraction of a moment too long, yet Merry, a knight of Rohan, apparently had no difficulty referring to Éomer without his title. There were so few people left who talked to Aragorn easily, without awe. Arwen did, of course, and Legolas and Gimli, and Faramir, at times, when they were alone. The hobbits, he had hoped, would never change, but even the hobbits…

Legolas looked at him, just a quick glance, a silent reminder. Aragorn let out a breath. There was often an awkwardness to any reunion, especially after several years apart. It was inevitable that the hobbits would worry that over those years apart, Aragorn had decided to stand on ceremony even with old friends. They would relax in time, if he showed them that they were allowed to.

It was why he had come here, after all.

"Éomer knows we are here," Aragorn admitted.

"I wanted to hide in the grass and rise up and hail him, as we did the first time we met him," Gimli said, chuckling at the memory of old times. "Even Aragorn was tempted, I think."

Tempted, yes. Ah, but it was too long! As a Ranger in the north, stealth had been a necessity. He had learnt to move unseen, because his purpose, sometimes his very life, depended on it. He had endured hardship and scorn, consoled by the hope that one day he would fulfil his destiny and be deemed worthy of Arwen's hand. It had never occurred to him that one day, he might miss those days in which he could pass unseen. As a king, he had other men to scout for him. He had other men to hunt for him and track for him and to pass into distant lands and report back what they had seen. It had to be thus, but sometimes… Sometimes…

"It is Éomer's camp," Aragorn explained. "It would be a breach of etiquette to enter it without his leave."

"His guards might have seen you sneaking around and tried to kill you," Pippin said. "And that would have been quite embarrassing for everyone."

"More embarrassing if they'd killed him," Merry said, leaning in towards Pippin and speaking as if the two of them were alone. Aragorn could not help but smile. Merry and Pippin would relax in time? They had relaxed within a minute. He should not have doubted them.

Or perhaps they were the ones who had doubted him, and who could blame them for that? He was king. So much had changed, and he was their king.

"But I doubt t the guards would have seen them," Pippin said, answering in the same manner. "They're the Three Hunters. Éomer's men still talk about how they appeared out of the grass as if by magic. If they'd wanted to sneak right up to Éomer's tent, they'd have done it, and nobody any the wiser."

Perhaps, Aragorn thought. Perhaps. Fourteen years ago he had possessed that skill, but now…?

"Why are you here?" Merry asked. "It's a lovely surprise, of course, but I thought we weren't seeing you until tomorrow."

"Sir Peregrin, Sir Meriadoc and King Éomer, heroes of the War of the Ring, will meet King Elessar tomorrow," Aragorn said, "as well as Prince Legolas and Gimli son of Glóin, envoys of their peoples. It will be their first meeting in several years." He settled down beside them, and pulled a pipe out of his ancient pack. "Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli will meet their friends today."

Gimli glanced pointedly at the empty frying pan. "And once again, we find those friends busy eating and smoking."

Pippin grinned, apparently more flattered than offended by Gimli's words, and offered Gimli his pipe. "We were securing second breakfast," he explained. "Éomer's cooks do a perfectly good first breakfast, but they don't understand about second breakfast. Have you enlightened the good people of Minas Tirith about second breakfast yet, Aragorn?"

Aragorn shook his head ruefully. "I have had somewhat more pressing concerns."

"Ah, well," Pippin said. "There's still time." He gasped, struck by a sudden thought. "Did you sneak out? Does the queen know? I'm married now, remember? My wife doesn't know when I…" He stopped; cleared his throat. "Never mind."

Gimli gave a bark of laughter, slapping his thigh with delight. "She does, Pip," Merry confided. "Wives always do."

Aragorn smiled ruefully. "Arwen knows, as does Faramir, a collection of court officials, the watch captain at the Great Gate, and the captain of the Citadel guard, who very politely and respectfully registered his disapproval of my venturing out without ten of his strongest lads to protect me."

"Ha!" Gimli roared his disapproval of _that_ particular anxiety. "You had us! Worth ten of them, any day. And you're no mean fighter yourself, as well he knows."

"So why did you tell them?" There was a sudden earnestness to Pippin's question. "You're _king_. Can't you just go wherever you like? That's what I'd…" He stopped, biting his lower lip: a nervous expression Aragorn had not seen on Pippin before. Pippin was wrestling with something, he thought, but there was would be time enough for that in the days to come.

There was so much that he could have said. Yes, he could go wherever he liked, and command them not to stop him, but that did not make it right. He had a responsibility to his people not to risk himself needlessly. Whether he wanted it or not, there were men sworn to die to protect him, and their lives, too, could not be risked without good cause. He could not risk their future on a whim. Not just because a city of stone could grow oppressive to one accustomed to the wilds. Not just because sometimes deference seemed as restrictive as chains. He could not leave the kingdom rudderless and vanish without a word, not even for a simple trip to meet old friends away from prying eyes. Not for something so…

He stopped. _Unimportant?_ he thought. But it was not unimportant; of course it was not. This was not something that could be delegated to some captain or official. It was just…

No, this was not the time. This was not the place. They had a few hours today to travel in each other's company, just friends on the road. This was a time for reminiscence, for renewing old friendships, for laughter away from the confines of the court.

"I have responsibilities that cannot be forgotten," was all he said. "But let us not speak of them," he said with a smile, "out here in the green fields."

Pippin looked as if he was about to ask another question, but Merry pre-empted him. Perhaps he, too, felt that today should be an interlude: a few snatched carefree hours without duties and concerns. "I don't think much of your weather in Gondor," he declared, craning his neck to look ostentatiously up at the grey clouds. "Almost midsummer in the south… I expected better."

"The clouds are clearing from the west," Aragorn said. "Tomorrow it will be…"

Something struck him then: just a shiver at first, then a cold creeping sense of dread. He remembered Gandalf falling in Moria. For days, in dreams, he had reached out a desperate hand to clutch at him, but Gandalf had fallen again and again into the void. He had felt the dread beforehand, just like this. Gandalf had spoken of Moria, and Aragorn had _known_. _If you pass the doors of Moria, beware!_

"What?" they were asking him. "What is it?"

He stood up. Legolas was on his feet, too, and Gimli close behind him. Éomer was coming towards them from his tent. This was Éomer's camp, Aragorn thought faintly. Aragorn had to greet him. He had to…

 _Go,_ he thought. _We must go._

"What is it?" A hand on his arm. Pippin, he saw, his eyes clouded with worry.

Gandalf falling in the dark. A hand. An arrow. Blood on sun-bleached stone.

"A shadow," he said; just that.

* * *

Darkness gathered at the end of the final day.

The assassin sat huddled in the shadows below the window, and stared out at the sunlight's last gleaming. He wondered if he would sleep. He doubted it, but he had to.

Tomorrow, one way or another, it would all come to an end.

* * *

end of chapter one


	2. The Great Gate Opens

**Chapter two: The Great Gate Opens**

From the introduction to _The Dawn of the Golden Age: A Social and Cultural History of the Common Folk of Minas Tirith,_ by Iorlas Fletcher, F.A. 834

They came in their thousands, in their tens of thousands. The people of Minas Tirith had seen many celebrations since the coming of their king, but they fiercely cherished each one. Only fourteen years before, they had been a people at war, assailed by a dread enemy. Only fourteen years ago, it had seemed as if the time for celebrations was gone forever. The children were too young to remember, but all adults knew what it was to gaze into a future that held no hope.

And so they came: families and friends; groups of apprentices granted a day's liberty; couples and people alone; rich and poor alike. They came to see their king and queen in formal raiment. They came to see the king of Rohan and his riders, who in those days still carried the glamour of strange lands. They came to see the two halflings, heroes of the War of the Ring. They came to see Legolas the elf and Gimli the dwarf. Lord Frodo had departed, and Lord Samwise had stayed behind to rule his realm, but all the other surviving members of the famed Fellowship of the Ring would be there, gathered in one place.

Imagine it, my readers! We live in a world of pale colours. The age of heroes has passed and gone, but these people, our forefathers, could stand in the presence of warriors who had faced Sauron himself. When there is great evil in the world, great heroes are born to fight it. These people, our forefathers, walked the same ground as legends.

Did they laugh, these legends? Did they feel fear and doubt, just like any man? I do not know, for my tale is not a tale of great ones. This is no dry academic treatise, written for elderly scholars to argue over in their high towers. No, my tale is that of the ordinary people: the citizens of Minas Tirith at the dawn of the Fourth Age. It is a tale of the people, written for the people. My song is one of their clothes and their food, their houses and their games; their dance and their music at the very cusp of the modern age.

And so I join them first on this summer afternoon, as they gathered to witness a meeting of kings. The day would end in death and fear, of course, but they did not know it. All they knew was that they had come together in happiness, bound together by joy and pride.

What did they look like, these people of the new age? Just like us, for all that they had lived through marvels. The modern tradition of portraiture was born in the early years of Elessar's reign, and we have portraits not just of kings and princes, but of wealthy artisans and their wives. Some artists painted servants. Some painted street scenes and the bustle of the market place. Look at any such picture, and you will see faces that would not look out of place in a modern market place.

The clothes they wore were very different from the clothes of today. Queen Arwen was a leader of fashion, but not in the manner of today's famous ladies, with their ever-changing passions. Queen Arwen's style was the epitome of unfussy elegance, and the women of Gondor flocked to emulate her, thus avoiding the vanity and decadence that would plague later centuries. As for the men, there was a strong military influence, even amongst men who had never fought. The grey cloaks and the natural colours of the Rangers were favoured, even by those who had never ventured into the wilds.

They were people like us, in different clothes. They were people who had lived through horrors that we can never imagine, but who also lived alongside heroes whose like we will never see again. As they waited for their king, some nibbled snacks, some sang, some gossiped, some played. Traders hawked their wares. Boys and girls flirted and snatched a kiss.

Just like us. Just like us.

* * *

"Go away," Lainor mumbled, but the knocking at the door did not go away. It was soft, more like scratching than knocking, really. Like fingernails. Chalk on a blackboard. A knife piercing his skull. There was a dull throbbing behind his eyes, like… like... Oh, he didn't know. Hurt, though. He tried to swallow, but there was nothing in his mouth to swallow with. "Go away." His voice cracked. He rolled over onto his side, his hands balled into fists. "Go away!" he shouted.

The person at his door did not go away. The sound grew louder, more like proper knock, now, but still soft.

Like a girl. Like a girl with hair like sparking fire. A girl who turned and walked away, leaving him just a letter and his memories.

"Rosseth?" He pushed himself to his feet, lurching with the bitter aftermath of wine. His hip crashed into a corner of the loom, and he bellowed with pain and hope and fury. He must have fallen asleep on the floor again. Bed was a faint memory. Bed was a vast cold emptiness, tangled sheets that had once been washed and cleaned by _her._

"Rosseth?" Hand pressed against his throbbing hip, he shambled to the door. Perhaps it _was_ her. No, no, it couldn't be. She had made that quite clear. Again and again, he had found her, asked her, _begged_ her. It wouldn't be…

But his other hand teased at his hair, raking away tangles, smoothing it down. It scraped across his face. It pulled at his tunic, tugging at the creases. He should go to the window and throw it open; let the… morning? Was it morning? He thought so, yes. Let in the morning air and drive away the stench of spilled wine and a broken life. He should…

A voice spoke his name. It was not her.

He ripped open the door. "Who are you?" he snarled. "I don't want you here. Go away." There was more light outside from the windows on the stairwell, and he winced away from it. Dusty drapes covered his own window. It was weeks since he had opened them and let the light in. He didn't think he ever would again.

The man on the doorstep did not give him a name. He was an unassuming fellow, short and slight, and perhaps a few years younger than Lainor himself. His quick flash of a smile was almost apologetic. He came on the king's business, or so he said. He had papers to prove it, or so he said, and some sort of token, and… Oh, what did it matter? Lainor barely glanced at them.

"You're no soldier," Lainor said. Not a guard. Not Rosseth. His stomach lurched sickeningly, and he gripped the open door. Did Rosseth have a new…? No, no, it couldn't be. He refused to… "I was a soldier." All unbidden, words came out of his arid mouth. Everything was spinning in front of his eyes. "Marched out to the Black Gate with the king."

And turned away before he got there. Accepted the offer to depart, then turned away a second time, running away even from that lesser task that the king had given those with a coward's heart. Nobody knew that. So much confusion and so many dead, and it was easy to slip away and hide between the cracks, then sidle back into the city afterwards, and pretend that you had played your part. Nobody knew.

Rosseth knew. She knew now.

Not a soldier, the man said; Lainor barely heard him. There was a ceremony today: the King of Rohan arriving in the afternoon, and King Elessar coming down to greet him. Routine security, the man said. Lainor's loft had a view of the processional route, now that the mansion opposite was half down. Had Lainor seen anything untoward…?

Lainor shook his head. It hurt. There were voices in the street outside his window: song, laughter, the gossip of fierce, bright girls. The king. The king would be passing nearby and if Lainor climbed to his loft and looked out into the clear fresh air, he would see him. He would see him.

He had not seen the king for fourteen years, since the day he had turned away from him, lowered his head, and accepted the offer of an honourable departure. He had lowered his head for fourteen years. For fourteen years, he had looked away.

"There's nothing," he managed to say. "I'm a weaver." He gestured vaguely at his father's loom. "I've got rolls of cloth awaiting buyers and bales of yarn awaiting weaving."

The man wanted to see, of course. Lainor scraped his hand across his brow. Outside, a dozen voices rose in ragged chorus. Oh, but Lainor just wanted to _sleep!_ "Go on, then." He squeezed the sides of his temples, fingers digging in. "Then go. Leave me alone." _Leave me alone!_ he wanted to scream to the crowds outside. _At least I rode out with him!_ he could have shouted at them. _I stayed here for the siege. I volunteered. I went._

It had meant nothing to Rosseth, of course.

The man slithered past him in the doorway, and began to climb the ladder. Lainor waited for a moment, pressed his brow against the wooden door, and followed him. "See?" he said, when he reached the top. He had not been here in… weeks? Months? The bales were dappled with dust and shadows. He could have sold them. He should have sold them. Strands of yarn coiled forgotten from the sacks. "See?" He said it like a challenge. "There's nothing here."

He could not see the stranger's face, but he saw his shoulders rise and fall with his too-rapid breathing. "Yes," the stranger agreed. "There's nothing here."

* * *

The assassin curled in on himself, barely breathing. Even the light breaths that he allowed himself sounded unnaturally loud. He tried not to move, but occasionally he trembled, his clothes whispering against the bales of cloth.

The voices were gone now. Feet had creaked down the ladder, and he had heard the men exchange a few more words below, and then the door had shut. They were gone. He thought. The weaver shambled around for a while, feet scraping on the floor. Then there was weeping, and then nothing at all.

Another shivering breath, and then another. Another.

He uncurled his leg first, paused for a reaction, then moved the other leg. Expectation was like a dagger along his spine. Had the weaver come back? Had the other man only pretended to leave? More movement: an arm, then his head. He crawled free, then clapped his hand to his mouth and managed a shuddering, silent cough.

Nothing. Nobody shouted. Nobody came.

He let out a long breath. He had crafted this hiding place days ago, subtly moving each bale of cloth in a way that would allow a small man to burrow between them and remain unseen. It had done its job. Suspicious eyes had glanced this way, and then moved on.

Nothing had changed.

* * *

And there was the city ahead of them, as vast as ever, shining in the sun. Pippin had tried to describe it to the hobbits back home, but he didn't think any of them had truly grasped how awe-inspiring it was. 'Built against the side of a mountain,' he had told them, but how many of them had ever seen a mountain? 'Tier after tier of shining stone,' but hobbits built low, and the most prized homes were dug into the earth and covered with grass and flowers.

 _I was afraid when I first got there._ He could have told them that, but of course he had not. He and Merry had come back heroes, with their new height and their liveries and their gifts from kings. Younger hobbits had flocked to hear their tales and had looked up at them admiringly. 'I came with Gandalf;' he had said that much. Riding on Shadowfax, brought there alone to meet with Denethor and become a knight of Gondor.

Nothing about the fear. Nothing about how huge it was, and how small you felt when you were the only hobbit in an enormous city built for Men.

It was a friendly city now, of course, and he had come here several times, but…

"The weather turned out nicely," Merry said, "just as Aragorn said it would." His smile was too bright.

They had barely two miles to go. On the road, away from settlements, they rode in no particular formation. Éomer's outriders had their assigned positions, of course, but Éomer was as likely to be dawdling alongside the hobbits as to be riding at the head of his entourage. Now, without any visible orders being given, the party was assuming its formal order. Merry and Pippin were near the front, dwarfed by the stern-faced Riders that flanked them. There were few smiles now, just the formal faces of men facing a public ceremony.

"This is why Strider came to meet us," Pippin said. The name slipped out before he could stop it, and he winced. He could say it in private, perhaps - _perhaps_ \- but it was probably not the done thing to say it in front of others. _I wish…_

He stopped that thought. For a while - for a few months, or, if he was honest, for a few years - he had enjoyed the fame that his adventures had brought him. Oh, he hadn't put on airs and graces, or so he hoped - Frodo and Sam were worthy of far more honour, and _they_ never courted it - but he had enjoyed being the object of admiration. Now he just wished for a quiet meeting beneath the apple trees, and to slip into Minas Tirith in the twilight, to spend time with his friends.

Merry was looking at him. Merry was Master of Buckland now, but Pippin was not yet Thain; not yet old enough to be Thain, and he didn't…

 _I don't…_

"There's no shadow," Pippin said. "The thing that Aragorn talked about. The shadow." He swallowed. The city was growing nearer and larger with every step. "Can he really see glimpses of things that haven't happened yet? He was right about Gandalf in Moria. I thought he was just saying it - just a normal sort of warning - but it was more than that, wasn't it? I've heard what the minstrels say. His bloodline has the gift of foresight."

Closer. Ever closer.

"And it's strange, isn't it?" He was babbling now, he thought. "We're just hobbits, and we've stepped into a story." He was friends with a _king,_ no, with _two_ kings. Strider, the disreputable fellow they had met in an inn and not always been entirely polite to, had the power to glimpse the world to come. "What's happening, Merry?" He was over forty years old. He thought he sounded like a child. "Aragorn and the others left so suddenly. Just a few minutes with Éomer, and then they were gone. Aragorn looked…" He shook his head, struggling for words. "I've never seen him like that."

"Whatever this 'shadow' was, they'll have dealt with it," said Merry the Master of Buckland, still reassuring, still exuding confidence, as he had first done over thirty years ago, when his young cousin Pippin had been afraid of foxes yipping in the dark.

* * *

A lone trumpet called out from the watch tower. Other trumpets took up its call, passing the message along the battlements: from the Citadel to the Great Gate; from the Great Gate back up to the heights again. A bell sounded prematurely, just one note, not joined by the rest of the peal: an over-eager bellringer coming in before his cue.

"He will be buying the drinks tonight," Aragorn murmured with a smile.

"My lord…" It was Haedirn, captain of the Citadel guard, the words almost pleading. Even Faramir looked pained, his face drawn and tense. Arwen's fingertips touched the back of Aragorn's hand, perhaps a gentle warning, perhaps just to remind him that she was here.

The trumpet calls died away. Far below, crowds were cheering, but it was only a faint murmur here in the Court of the Fountain. Aragorn looked up at the tallest tower, where the mithril on the royal banner was gleaming in the sun.

It was time. Éomer's party had been sighted, and it was time to journey down to greet them. It was time to face the shadow.

Aragorn began to walk towards the gate. Guards flanked it, their faces hidden by their helmets. Faramir fell into step beside him, leaning towards him in a fiction of speaking in confidence. "My lord, are you sure…?"

"I am sure," Aragorn told him.

The shadow was still there; a constant awareness at the back of his mind. Between the Citadel and the Great Gate, great danger awaited. He thought he was the target, but he could not be sure. Arwen, Faramir, Legolas, Gimli, Éomer, Merry or Pippin… If any of them were killed, it would be a wound to his heart as sharp as any blade. If his guests were publicly struck down within the gates of Minas Tirith, it would be a blow to Gondor, seriously affecting how she was seen by her allies and her enemies alike. A king _had_ to consider things that way. He had to consider the wider implications, not just the personal cost.

"You could stay here." Faramir was saying it because he had to, of course. It was his job to suggest possibilities. To Faramir, as to Captain Haedirn of the Citadel Guard, one concern was paramount. Their king was in danger. Everything else was secondary to that. "Greet Éomer here, in the Courtyard, closed to public view." It was a sign of disquiet that he referred to Éomer without his title. Éomer was his brother-in-law, but in public and in formal ceremonies, even when alone, Faramir was scrupulous about titles.

"And disappoint the people?" The breeze shifted, bringing a sudden surge of distant cheering, like a soft wave breaking on the shore.

"Sire…" Captain Haedirn begged, driven beyond endurance. The people meant nothing. Appearances were nothing. Better to have a king who cowered in his Citadel, a king who _lived_.

"And expose King Éomer to the danger?" Aragorn kept his voice gentle, but there was steel behind it: a fist clad in a velvet glove. "If the danger I have foreseen should prove true, how will it be spoken abroad? That the King of Gondor threw his guests to the wolves, while he cowered behind a locked door?" He softened the steel. "You are only doing your job, I know."

"Your safety is my concern, my lord," said the captain in anguish. "You are Gondor."

 _Yet Gondor existed for three thousand years before me,_ Aragorn could have said, _and will continue to exist, I hope, long after I am gone_. They were almost at the gate now. There was another flurry of trumpets, perhaps answering some signal from Éomer's party, still too far away to be heard.

None of them doubted him, Aragorn realised suddenly. He had slipped back into Minas Tirith the evening before, and had told them about his premonition. Steps had immediately been taken. Patrols had been dispatched, guards were stationed throughout the city, and the bloodhounds been busy all night, sniffing out clues. Not once had any of them asked him if he was _sure._ Faramir had the gift of foresight himself at times, of course, as did Arwen, but none of his captains and officials did. Yet none had raised even the faintest shadow of doubt. They instantly accepted that their king had gifts greater than other men. He spoke. They believed.

"Nothing has been found," he reminded them now. "Able men have scoured the city and have found no hint of any threat." _I could be wrong,_ he might have said, but his awareness of the shadow would not let him speak the words. It was still there, almost real enough to touch.

Faramir said nothing. He was uncomfortable with the situation, but Aragorn knew that he understood why Aragorn had to ride out to face whatever danger lurked in the shadow. He would have done the same himself, after all.

"And if it is there, but they have failed to find it?" the captain said. "If they have failed, my lord…?"

There were times when Aragorn had to accept that he could no longer lead from the front. There were tasks that other men should do. There were officials throughout his kingdom who could judge in his name. There were soldiers who died for him, and captains who led missions that one day, long ago, he might have led by himself. Aragorn could not deliberately court danger on a whim, but this… But this…

"This is not the time for the King of Gondor to hide away," he said, as the gate opened before him, and he began the long descent.

* * *

"The Great Gate is shut." Pippin was whispering; he did not know why. "Merry, the Gate is shut."

"They know we're coming." Merry gestured towards Éomer's trumpeters. They had already unleashed a deafening flurry of sound, and looked as if they were preparing to do another. It had all sounded quite warlike to Pippin, almost like a threat, but he supposed he knew nothing about such things. The distant trumpets from the battlements of Minas Tirith had sounded more friendly, but perhaps that was just because they were further away.

"Then why…?" No, no, he had to stop asking questions. He was a knight of Gondor, and he was something of a hero to the hobbits back home. He looked up at the flying banners, horses galloping on a field of green. The nearest flagbearer was barely more than a boy, but his chin was high and he sat proud and erect in the saddle. But as Pippin watched him, he caught a flicker of anxiety in the bearer's eyes. He, too, was nervous, afraid that he would let his king down. Was he scared of dropping the banner? Of tripping? Of committing some breach of arcane Gondorian etiquette?

Pippin straightened his spine, and reached behind him with his left hand, making sure that his cloak hung well. Éomer turned in his saddle, smiling back at them. "Ride alongside me, my friends." He slowed a little, allowing them to catch up. Merry rode at his right hand, as befitted one with closer ties to the Mark, and Pippin moved into place at his left.

He remembered the first time he had seen Éomer, travel-worn and battered in the retinue of Théoden, a fading bruise on one cheek and a rent in his cloak. Éomer was a year younger than Pippin himself, but at that time, Pippin had been inclined to see all Men as older than him. Éomer had become king at the age of twenty-eight, never having expected the title or prepared for it. At twenty-eight, Pippin had never left the Shire, never held a sword, never been in danger of his life, seldom gone anywhere or done anything without an older friend or cousin at his side.

And now Éomer was king. And Pippin was a knight of Gondor, returning to the city in which he had vowed to serve.

Behind him, the trumpets blared out once more. A horse neighed. A bird soared above them on lazy wings. Pippin kept his head high, and let his pony take him towards whatever lay ahead.

* * *

Even here, he was watched. There were so few times now when Aragorn was not watched by strangers, his gestures and expressions noted, his words marked, reported or written down. Women and children stood on high balconies, some of them casting down flowers. A petal came to rest on Aragorn's hair. He plucked it off and nodded a thank you, making his lips smile. It was his duty, after all.

He walked alone, although guards flanked him. This concession at least he had made to the danger. Arwen was behind him, with Legolas and Gimli beside her as honoured guests, and Faramir had his own place in the procession, and his own guard. If a killer was indeed waiting to strike, his targets were separated. By rights, Faramir should have stayed behind, to ensure that the Steward survived even if the king did not, but Aragorn could not ask this of Faramir, not today. Éowyn and her children were safe, though, and Eldarion was well-guarded in the citadel. Whatever happened today, their lines would survive.

They reached the gate to the fifth level. The guards on duty saluted him, bowing their heads as he walked past. Unwise, he thought. He would have to change that. With their heads bowed, they were inattentive. There was too much deference in Gondor, he thought. It was getting worse, not better.

It was dark in the shadow on the gate, almost as dark as evening to eyes that had grown accustomed to fierce sunlight on white stone.

When Aragorn emerged from the gateway, the gate captain stepped forward, then went down on one knee. His eyes, though, remained alert, continuing to scan the area around his post. "My lord," he said. "Sire. It is... unconventional, but I was given a letter, a letter for you."

* * *

If she leant out of the window, Éowyn thought, she would see the banners of her own people, far below her on the plain. She would see her brother riding at the head of his warriors, as she had watched him from her window so many years ago. If Minas Tirith fell silent, she would hear the familiar horns of home. Her father had sounded horns like that, when he had come riding home. Théodred and Éomer, returning to Meduseld in the dark days of Gríma Wormtongue, had announced their arrival with horns, and she had run from the shadows to greet them, and then again, to watch them ride away.

But there were no horns here, and there were no windows to grant her a view of the plain. She was deep inside the Citadel, behind locked doors. Her children were with her, along with their nurse. Eldarion sat quietly in a corner and leafed through a book that was surely too difficult for him to read. "Can we go outside?" Elboron asked, and his nurse told him no, "no, you can't, dearie, not for a little while yet."

"But why not?" Elboron asked, and the nurse looked at Éowyn over his head, wanting her to be the one to answer.

Éowyn opened her mouth, and closed it again. _Because the king has the gift of foresight, and he foresees some danger facing us all this day. Because your father and your uncle and the king are out there, facing that danger, while you… While I…_

"Because the king has commanded it," Eldarion said, who was all of five years old, and yet was answering when she could not. "But it will be over soon, and then we can _run_."

As it had done so many times before, Éowyn's hand slid down to her belly. It was still flat, but _that_ was the reason why she was trapped inside. So here she was in a locked room with no windows, while all the men she cared about were outside in the sunlight, moving away.

* * *

Daerion stood alone outside the Great Gate. It was closed behind him, as it had not been closed in daylight hours since the dark days of the siege. He had been Captain of the Great Gate then, too, but he had let it be breached by the enemy, and he had failed to withstand the Nazgûl and had fallen into the dark. All that was forgiven now. His king had forgiven him from the start, and over the years, Daerion had learnt to forgive himself. The Great Gate was still his.

But not for much longer, he thought. He was sixty-nine years old, and although it pleased him to believe that he was still hale, he was captain in little more than name now. He gave the commands, but younger men carried them out. Years ago, as a boy, he had given his heart to Captain Thorongil and longed to follow him. Too young, they had told him then. _Too old._ Was that what they were saying now? If so, he did not hear them, but his mirror told its tale. Sometimes, when he took his armour off at the end of the day, his body ached so much that he could barely stand.

Perhaps today would be a good day to hang up his sword. When the ceremony was over, he could request an audience with his king, and return the dagger that the king himself had given him so many years ago, when he was a captain and Daerion just a foolish child. The king would understand. He would allow Daerion to keep the dagger, but he would not let sentiment blind him to the city's needs. The Great Gate needed a younger man.

But he would perform his one last duty. The King of Rohan was close now, barely two furlongs away. A ripple of excitement ran through the crowd outside the Gate. They were at least two hundred strong: travellers who had arrived too late to enter the city before the Gate was shut, and those who had chosen to come outside and watch the visitors approach. "No, dear," he heard a young woman explain to her daughter, "he's not _our_ king, but you're right, he _is_ shiny."

Daerion smiled to himself, then decided to let the smile show openly, regardless of the fact that he was on duty, regardless of the fact that some amongst the crowd were watching him. Most of them were watching the approaching horsemen. Daerion watched and waited. Soon… Soon…

It was time. The Great Gate had been closed as soon as the party had been sighted, so it could be flung open as they neared it, as a symbol of the king's welcome: the gates thrown open to them without them needing to ask. Daerion did not know if it was a very old ritual revived, or a new ritual for a new age. All he knew was that the Gate was his charge, and it was time to perform his duty.

His last duty?

Perhaps.

* * *

 _Late_ , Mínir thought. He was too late.

It had taken too _long_. His role in the defence of the city was by necessity shrouded in deliberate mystery. He slipped into places where no guards could go. He spoke the vernacular of the people, and could mingle with crowds in low taverns, and sniff out secrets. It was nearly ten years since he had encountered a stranger in the fog: a stranger who had turned out to be the king. Mínir had been a nobody then, just a broken man who found straying husbands and missing purses for a small fee, but the king had looked into his eyes and said that he saw potential there. In him. In Mínir. Him.

 _Who'd have thought it?_ He said it laughingly, sometimes, drinking with his lads. 'Bloodhounds,' they were calling themselves now. 'Captain Mínir's bloodhounds.' The 'Captain' was mocking, surely, for he was just a nobody from the streets, not a man to hold a title. He was somewhere between a watch captain and a spy, but some days, most days, he liked to think that Minas Tirith was a little safer because of him and his lads.

But it had never been like _this_ before. _Please, please,_ he thought. _Let me be right. Let me be on time._

Too _long._ The drunken weaver had led Mínir upstairs, and Mínir had known at once that something wasn't right. The signs were subtle, as they often were. Mínir had spoken once to a huntsman who had listed and described all those tiny clues that let him know that his quarry was near. It wasn't like that for Mínir, or not completely. He saw things and heard things. Sometimes he considered what he was seeing, and came up with a reasoned conclusion. Other times, he just _felt_.

This was one of those times. Perhaps it was a disturbance in the dust. Perhaps it was a sound too quiet for conscious hearing. Perhaps it was a smell: a neglected loft that didn't smell quite right. _He is here!_ Mínir had thought it quite strongly. _Someone is here!_

But he had been alone, and the agreement was clear. He was no fighter. He was the bloodhound. He found the quarry, and others wielded the sword. And so he had turned and left, hoping desperately that the hiding man, if there was indeed a hiding man, was fooled into thinking himself safe. But it had taken too long, and the crowds were too thick. He could hear them now, laughing, singing, shouting. It had taken too long to find one of the friendly Guard captains, and longer still to return with the patrol. Just time to dash off a note in his clumsy, ill-tutored hand. Just time to tell the king that he had found something; that he thought, that he hoped…

"Please," he begged under his breath, but the weaver's door remained shut. Two of the patrol had axes - _Good,_ he thought. _Good!_ \- but it was taking too _long,_ the wood splintering far too slowly, and the king, the king was near.

* * *

The Great Gate swung open without a sound when they were still a hundred yards away. The guards drew to the side. The crowds were even further apart: two ragged lines of people on either side of the approach. No-one came forward. There was no herald, no official, no captain… no friends.

"It is how he wants it, Master Peregrin," Éomer said quietly. "The city is ours as it is his, to enter and leave as we will."

The ceremony was going to be within the walls, of course; Pippin remembered that. Aragorn had been crowned outside the city, to symbolise that he was no invader. He had only entered the city when its people had given him their acclamation, when they had invited him to rule them. They placed such store in gates and walls in this stone city in the south. There was nothing like this at home. But bounds, boundaries… They were important everywhere, Pippin supposed. Even when you opened your door and smiled and said, 'Come in! Come in!' you were saying that the house inside was yours, and the hobbit outside only entered because you had invited them.

But the gates of Minas Tirith had been thrown open to them on sight, and there was no-one on the threshold to invite them in. They would ride freely into the city just like a hobbit returning to his own home.

 _Home,_ Pippin thought. _Welcome._ Although nervousness still fluttered in his stomach, he looked straight ahead, into the city beyond the Gate, and he smiled.

* * *

From _With My Own Eyes: Eyewitness Accounts of Great Events,_ edited by Hallas the Scribe, F.A. 520

Letter from Remiel daughter of Remion, written to her sister, F.A. 12

I was on the front row. Just fancy that! I thought they'd keep those places for great lords and ladies, but there I was, just little old me, a netmaker's daughter from the shores of the Anduin. The king would pass almost close enough to touch. That's what the lady next to me said, anyway, a motherly sort who'd clearly decided to take me under her wing. She had a posy of flowers, really lovely, for all that they were city grown. For the queen, she said, but she made me take them, said she wanted me to have the thrill of handing them over. I'm sending you one of them with this letter, pressed.

So there we were. I'd been standing there since before dawn, and city stone is harder on the feet than a soft riverbank. There were so many people! And all the towering stone! My ears were ringing. My head ached. So different from the meadows of home, where sometimes you hear nothing at all but the distant humming of the bees and the gentle rippling of the river.

Suddenly there was a blast of horns, like the ones we heard that day when the king's messengers came past, do you remember? "That's the Great Gate open again," my neighbour explained. "No, don't look like that. Of course you didn't hear it opening. It's dwarven workmanship, as quiet as pushing back a curtain. But the horns announce it, see."

So the King of Rohan was in the city, and the halflings, the ones they sing songs about. You always liked the tales of the halflings best, didn't you? I couldn't see them, though, but someone on the other side of the road was shouting something about banners, banners with horses on. People were cheering from somewhere not too far away. "The king," my neighbour told me. "The king is at the second gate. He'll be here soon."

The king! Walking right past me! And maybe the queen would accept the posy and smile at me. I wanted to laugh, but then, suddenly, I was almost weeping. My neighbour smiled at me as if she understood. I longed to be somewhere safe and far away. But at the same time, I knew that I couldn't bear to be anywhere but here.

"Very soon," my neighbour told me. "Very very soon. I see him. Yes, I see him!"

You'll have heard what happened, of course. Bad news spreads fast, and travellers will already have brought the tidings. I might even arrive home before my letter gets there, but I want to send it, paying a messenger to carry it for me, as if I'm some grand lady. You've never had a letter of your very own, and I've never sent one.

I just want to write it down, I think.

The crowd around me grew quieter as the king approached - saving their voices, or so my neighbour whispered, for the cheering that was to come. And that was how I heard it so clearly. There was a bell, a single, harsh, urgent bell, and then a shout. "He's going to kill the king!" it said, although I couldn't make it out at first, but that's what they told me afterwards. And then came the sound of breaking glass, and I saw someone falling. Someone screamed; I think it might have been me. And then everyone was screaming. It was all I heard, the screaming.


	3. Blood on Stone

**Chapter three: Blood on Stone**

From _Blood on Stone_ , by Peregrin Cordwainer of Osgiliath, F.A. 1404

The attack rocked Gondor to its core. It was such a public act, witnessed by thousands of ordinary people. It was no dagger in the dark. It was no great feat of arms, performed on a blood-drenched plain. It was death sudden and shocking, coming in the middle of a festival. Like a play, it had been carefully staged. To those who planned it, the audience was as important as the chief players.

Did they know what they were truly witnessing, these people who had come to witness a ceremony of welcome? Did they know what they were truly seeing, these people who stood ten deep and saw a man fall to his death? Did anyone there truly know? Did even Elessar, renowned for his wisdom, know the true significance of what was happening?

For the world was changing. The world had changed so much in the lifetime of those who stood there that day, and surely some of them must have hoped that all change had come to an end. They considered themselves to be living in a golden age, and they wished that it would never end.

But once the wheels of change start turning, they can never be stopped. A tiny seed was planted that day, but it would grow.

It would grow.

* * *

At length, and far too late, they were through.

Someone had pushed heavy bales of cloth up against the door, and even when the wood gave way to the repeated blows of the axe, the bales refused to move. Mínir and the guards had to hack at the cloth and tear it away with their hands. People outside were already screaming by the time they managed to squeeze into the weaver's chamber, one at a time. A guard went first. Mínir wanted it to be him, but he had never been a fighter; never been one to know how to defend himself, except in the sort of brawls that you had in the streets, all kicking and teeth.

That guard hissed something - some code word, perhaps, that only meant something to other guards - and a second guard nodded briskly, and followed him in. Mínir went third.

The noise outside was terrific. Sprawled on his back next to the loom, the weaver lay, blood slowly oozing from the side of his head. Mínir wanted to check on him, but there was no time. Dead men didn't bleed, though; he wished, sometimes, that he didn't need to know that. Mínir stepped over him, meaning to rush to the window, but a guard was ahead of him, approaching it cautiously, making sure that any watchers outside saw his empty hand first, pressed against the window in the agreed signal.

"I see the king's banners!" the guard exclaimed, too relieved to remember the need for quiet words. "I see the king. Lord Faramir. The queen. All standing." And then he looked down at the street below, and gasped.

Because there was screaming, of course. Outside they were all screaming.

Mínir wanted to tear the guard away from the window and look out himself. He made himself turn the other way. The ladder to the loft was blocked, hemmed in by bales and crates that hadn't been there an hour before. There was noise behind them: a foot on a creaky floorboard, perhaps, and a sudden sensation of a draught. "He was upstairs," Mínir said, but the guards were already at work, hauling away the makeshift barrier. One went up, his dagger in his hand. Another followed. Mínir heard footsteps on the floorboards above.

Mínir had meant to follow them, but instead he followed the draught. There were two more rooms at the back of the weaver's lodgings. The kitchen was full empty flagons and reeked of stale wine. There was a sadness to the bedroom, reminding Mínir of his own bedroom in the dark years before he had encountered the king. The curtains were closed, but the window behind them was open. He moved towards it, and caught hold of the curtain, creating a tiny gap between the fabric and the edge of the window. Closing one eye, he peered through.

"There's no-one here," a guard said from behind him. Mínir didn't turn round. "Just the unconscious fellow. _He'll_ have questions to answer when he wakes up."

"That's the weaver," Mínir said. "Innocent, I think. Too drunk to know what was going on under his nose."

They were on the fourth floor, too high for anyone to jump down. Across a narrow alleyway, there was another building, a lower one, its tiled roof steeply sloping. The gap was surely too great to jump, and the landing too difficult. But several tiles were loose, and two lay smashed in the yard below. Surely not, he thought, but, still…

"There's nobody upstairs," the guard said. "Not any more, at any rate."

"Not any more?"

"Dead," the guard said. "Shot clean through the glass, he was, and fell out the window. He's lying there on the cobbles out front. We got him. Not quiet-like as we hoped, but we got him. Our lads got him."

Everyone in Minas Tirith was lining the main streets, watching the procession. Was that a flash of movement there at the end of the alley, like a dark cloak swirling as it rounded the corner, and then was gone?

"Yes," Mínir said, but he frowned as he said it, and chewed his lip. "Yes, we did."

* * *

The guards had formed up around him, assuming defensive positions, ready to die rather than allow any harm to come to their king. Faramir, too, had rushed forward, as if his first instinct upon hearing the screaming had been to throw himself towards Aragorn and protect him. He, at least, had stopped himself, and was looking outwards, his hand on the hilt of his sword, and his eyes forever in motion.

Aragorn tried to step forward. The guards stopped him, their swords thrust out towards the heaving crowd. Few of them knew what was happening, that much was plain, but they could hear other people screaming, and they were afraid. A boy was knocked from his feet, and hauled up again by his mother, wailing. Pushed from behind, a knot of people surged forward, barely yards from the guards' swords. "Back!" the guards shouted, raising their swords. "Get back!"

"Look to your duty," Aragorn commanded quietly, his voice almost lost in the clamour.

The guards formed up even closer, shoulder to shoulder, blocking his way. Aragorn felt Arwen's gaze upon him, and turned towards her, but it could only be the briefest of glances. His expression could not alter, but he gave her an inward smile, knowing that she could read it. He had already known that she was unharmed.

"Look to your duty," Aragorn said again, still keeping his voice low, so the crowd would not hear their king rebuking his own guards for protecting him. "The people are in a panic. We are unharmed."

"Back!" Faramir shouted. "Stand back! All is well! The king and queen are unharmed!"

Faramir, at least, they obeyed, although even then it was difficult. A crowd in panic had a momentum of its own. They respected Faramir and were accustomed to obeying him, but they were afraid. Aragorn could have commanded them, using the voice that had sent orcs to flight and the gaze that had cowed the Mouth of Sauron himself, but he would never do that, not to his own people.

The guard consented at last to relax their guard upon him, and moved outwards, quietening the crowd. They were firm, as he had known they would be, but kind, although he feared for a moment that they would not be. Faramir managed to approach Aragorn closely enough to address him quietly. "Is it over?" he asked. "Has the shadow…?"

Aragorn looked inwards. "Shifted," he said. "Not gone, but… changed." And it truly was a shadow that he sensed now. There was no longer the sense of imminent death and violence, just the sense of a shadow cast by the sun.

"What happened?" Faramir asked. "What has happened?"

Ahead of them, very close now, Aragorn saw the banners of Rohan. Had Éomer been the target after all? He sucked in a breath, then let it out gently, knowing beyond doubt that nobody he loved had died this day.

"Mínir was right," Aragorn said quietly, but the rumours were already spreading, racing through the crowd, spoken from person to person, and sometimes repeated in loud exclamations. The assassin had been in a high window of a building on the next street over, just visible through a gap between two tall towers. Somebody had seen him at the window and shouted a warning, and somebody else had been quick on the draw, shooting the assassin before he could do his vile work. He had fallen from the window, and lay dead on the cobbles below.

"Dead?" Aragorn echoed, but Legolas had already heard it, and was racing through the crowd, moving as swiftly as only an elf could do. If the assassin still lived, Legolas would ensure that he was kept alive. If he was dead, and there were answers to be found from the way he had fallen, Legolas would find them.

"What now, my lord?" Faramir asked.

"We carry on," Aragorn said. "Nothing should change."

He saw Mínir trying to elbow his way through the crowd, but he knew that he could not talk to him. He would have to see the assassin, alive or dead, but this was not the time for it. He could not step aside. He could not even as much as glance at the high window where a man had been lying in wait to strike him down. The danger was over. No, the danger was still all too present, because panic could kill, and rumours could spread and plant fresh dangers of their own. He had to show them that he was calm and untroubled. He had to show them that this was only a minor interruption, nothing to disturb the day.

And slowly, slowly, as he walked onwards, the crowd stilled, as they came close to believing him.

He could almost believe it himself.

* * *

"What's happened?" Pippin wanted to shout, because there was so much noise all around them, and screaming, too; he was sure there was screaming.

He tried to look at Merry, but Merry was on the far side of Éomer, and out of sight. The banners were huge: horses galloping across the sky. They were through the Gate now, but he still felt it looming behind him, even more so now that they were dismounted. It was just one gateway, but it was taller than anything in the entire Shire. He looked back at it over his shoulder, and saw that it was blocked by a crowd of people, who had gathered outside to watch them arrive and were now surging in after them. There was nothing to do but go on. _But of course,_ he thought, _because that's what we're here for._

And then Aragorn was walking towards them, with the queen at his side, and Faramir was there, too. Gimli was there- _Legolas!_ Where was…? But Gimli was smiling at them and nodding his head vigorously, so Pippin knew that wherever Legolas was, he was well. So it had come to nothing, then. Whatever the screaming had been about, it had ended happily. Now there was nothing to fear but the ceremony itself, and that would soon be over.

Aragorn pressed his hand to his heart, and then moved it outwards, in what Pippin supposed was some Gondorian gesture of welcome. Éomer walked forward, and there was more solemn gesturing, and then Éomer and Aragorn embraced, but it didn't look like a real embrace, not like the one they had shared the morning before in the camp. Everyone cheered, though, and that was good.

Then it was their turn to come forward. _Should I kneel?_ Pippin wondered. Yesterday, Aragorn had said that they would be meeting King Elessar today. That's why he'd come to meet them: so they could do their informal greetings and leave today for the formalities. Pippin was still a guard of the Citadel, and many in the city would remember that. Perhaps they would be offended on their king's behalf if he didn't kneel. But…

Aragorn shook his head ever so slightly, his eyes flickering sideways for an instant. Pippin looked where Aragorn was indicating, and saw Merry busy with bowing: just a brief bow, no kneeling involved. Pippin copied him, and everyone cheered. Oh so many people, and every one of them was cheering!

But it was Aragorn's smile that Pippin saw most clearly. He had always had such a nice smile, even when they'd first met him as Strider, and hadn't much liked the look of him. He hadn't smiled often, but he'd smiled just enough. He'd probably smiled for their sake, Pippin realised suddenly, because he couldn't have had much to smile about back then, knowing the dangers they were going to face. So even though Sam had been slow to trust him, they'd all of them been subtly comforted by his presence. They followed him, and listened to him, and when they saw him smiling, they knew that it was safe to sleep.

Seeing Aragorn's smile, Pippin finally let himself relax, and felt himself smiling, too. The crowd loved it! At home, ceremonies were informal things, full of food and laughter, and if you tripped over and said the wrong thing, everyone there enjoyed it all the more. Here in Gondor, ceremonies were solemn things, and the words and gestures had to be just right. But perhaps, at the heart of things, they were not that very different, after all.

They were all about people. They always were, the things that mattered most.

* * *

The man was dead. "The arrow had taken him in the throat," Legolas reported. "He was dead before he landed."

"But who was he?" Faramir asked.

Several hours had passed, and they were gathered in a chamber below the Citadel, lit by many candles. The assassin's body had been brought there under close guard, in case the man had allies who wanted to recover his body. Captain Haedirn had doubled the watches of the Citadel guard, and down in the lower levels, the City guard was out in force. Aragorn's smile might have reassured Pippin and those in the crowd close enough to see it, but the city was a troubled one tonight, full of rumours and fear.

Aragorn ran his fingers across the dead man's brow, as if he could draw truths from his mind with a touch. The guards had stripped him for searching, but Aragorn had made them cover him again, draping him in a plain white sheet. His death wound was covered, and he might have seemed merely sleeping, were it not for the coldness of his skin.

"One of ours?" Faramir asked. A man from Gondor, he meant. A citizen of Minas Tirith who so hated his king that he had been prepared to forfeit his life in an attempt to kill him. Faramir pressed his hands together, shaking his head. "Surely he cannot be one of ours."

"No captain is universally loved," Aragorn said. "Even in the happiest of companies, there are grievances. It is thus in kingdoms, too." It was only to be expected. When Denethor still lived, Aragorn had expected that some in Gondor would bitterly resent his coming. But to be driven by that resentment to attempt an assassination…?

Faramir said nothing, but he started pacing. Candles flickered as he passed them, and shadows fell deeply on his tense face. He was taking it hard. Minas Tirith had been his home from birth, and as steward, he had claimed to speak for the whole of Gondor when he had welcomed Aragorn as king. At times like this, he reacted as a host whose guest had suffered an insult in his house, or a parent whose child had done something unforgiveable.

"But this one…" Aragorn said more gently, brushing his hand against the man's dark hair. "No, he is not one of ours, I believe."

"But he doesn't look…" Faramir was aged by the candlelight, the shadows deep beneath his eyes. "He is not of the blood of Númenor, that much in plain, but there are many in northern Gondor with colouring such as his. I had some like him with me in Ithilien. He is wiry, and tanned like someone who spends his days outside: a farmer, perhaps, or a hunter…"

"A hunter," Legolas said. "He has calluses on his fingers. I held his hand as its warmth faded, and I felt them there. He is no stranger to the bow."

"Yet his bow was not with him when he fell," Gimli said. "That rough lad of yours - Mínir? - says he found it upstairs…"

"Strung, but discarded," said Faramir, "with a poisoned arrow lying beneath it, as if it had been nocked to the string when he had let the bow fall."

They were only voices now. With the back of his loosely curled fingers, Aragorn touched the dead man's cheek, his brow, his eyelids that were forever closed. Too late now. Secrets could be gleaned from the body of a dead man, but the secrets of his heart would remain forever unspoken. What had driven him? What thoughts, what fears, had clamoured in his mind in the moments before his death? "He was following the will of his lord," Aragorn murmured. "He did not dare step back."

"His lord?" That was Faramir.

Outside on the stairs, there came the sound of heavy footsteps as the watch changed. There was no other sound, except for the faint whispering of candle flames. Before the hour was out, they would have to leave this place and don their finest clothes to welcome their guests with feasting and songs.

Aragorn moved away from the body. Heated by the candles, the air was noticeably warmer than the dead man's skin. "He came from the east, I believe," he said, because it would be discovered soon enough, if it had not been discovered already. "East of Rhovanion but west of Rhûn. They are not so different from the men who lived in Gondor before the coming of Elendil. Over the centuries, they have moved away from us in speech and custom, and we from them, but we look like enough to pass unnoticed through each other's lands. This one lived in Minas Tirith for many months, or so it is being whispered."

"Pass unnoticed?" Gimli echoed. "There is a tale here, my friend, is there not?"

"There is indeed." Despite everything, Aragorn smiled. "I lived among them for a while. They were a fractured people, riven by rivalries and clan wars, and the emissaries of Sauron were winning the allegiance of their lords one by one. My presence went unremarked, until…" He gave a rueful smile, shaking his head. "Until it was not. I escaped with my life, but barely. A boy from one of the tribes helped me: a tribe that had not yet fallen to Sauron."

"And he is from these people?" asked Faramir, who was usually as hungry for stories as a hobbit, but cared nothing for them this day. "These Easterlings have been a growing menace these last few years, but to attempt an act like _this_ …! Are you sure of it?"

"There is a knife mark on his throat." Aragorn gestured towards the bunched-up sheet, but did not touch it. "It is how their lords proclaim their mastery." He walked to the table against the wall, heaped with the scant possessions of a man who had died so far from home. The clothes revealed nothing, clearly bought in the markets of Minas Tirith, but pinned to the inside of the shirt, there was a brooch fashioned in the shape of a red sun with rays of bright gold. "He wore this hidden beneath his clothes," Aragorn said. "It is the sigil of his lord; the badge of his clan. If his lord commanded this, he would not have known how to disobey."

"Then it is an act of war!" cried Gimli.

 _Yes,_ Aragorn thought. A declaration of war, made before every man, woman and child in Minas Tirith. For months, he had Faramir had kept the warning signs hidden, hoarding the intelligence that trickled in, and watching the east. It was all in the open now: if not the truth, then wild rumours, and rumours could be even more damaging than the truth.

"Yes," said Faramir. He let out a slow breath, as if he was consciously laying aside the consternation he had felt since the assassination attempt, and looking to the future. His eyes met Aragorn's, and Aragorn knew that he understood. "The question is, what do we do about it?"

There was a brisk knock at the door. It was almost time. Pulling the sheet over the dead man's face, Aragorn gestured to Faramir to open the door. One by one, Gimli snuffed the candles, until the dead man lay in the darkness.

It was still light outside, although low in the east, the first stars were gleaming.

"It is not the only question, of course," Legolas said, coming alongside Aragorn with his silent steps.

"No," Aragorn agreed.

* * *

The songs were the songs of home.

The banquet hall was built of towering stone, with tall white pillars and windows of many-paned glass. It was Gondor through and through, and nothing like the thatched hall of Meduseld, with its carved floor and its ancient tapestries. But once the feasting had finished, licence had been given to the feasters to wander around, and that was not the way of Gondor at all. They gathered now in small knots, and spoke in increasingly loud voices, and sang the songs of home. And if you closed your eyes…

Éowyn half closed her eyes now, and listened to the men of the Mark sing the songs that she had grown up hearing. Inhaling, she could smell woodsmoke and spilled mead and roast meat flavoured with cloves and honey: familiar smells all. Beneath them, if she tried, she found the faint scent of horses and leather and outside. She remembered leaning out of her mother's window, straining to feel the cold wind upon her cheek, straining to catch that smell. Quiet behind her came the sound of her mother's spinning wheel, while the wind brought her the sound of her father's Riders singing songs of fellowship and war.

Movement beside her dragged her away from her remembering. "It is just like home," said Éomer, sitting down in the empty chair beside her.

"Of course it is," Éowyn said, more sharply than she would have liked. "It is done this way to honour you."

"I know that," Éomer said, taking her hand. His hand was larger than Faramir's, and more coarse. "Éowyn-"

"The seneschal wanted a grand banquet in the style of Gondor," Éowyn told him. "It would have gone on for hours, with long speeches. All the nobility of Gondor would have been invited. It was only _proper_ , he said."

Éomer chuckled. "I expect Aragorn made short shrift of _him._ He is not one to care over much about the cluckings of petty officials."

Éowyn shook her head. "He listens to advice, even when he thinks it is wrong. He grants his seneschal enough victories to keep him content, then over-rides him politely on the other things. He has a strong will, as we all know, but…" She remembered trying to dissuade him from entering the Paths of the Dead. She would never forget it: the darkest moment of her life. The despair was a thing of the past, but she still sometimes woke up silently screaming, remembering what it had felt like to stand in the path of someone with such an iron will, knowing that there was nothing she could do to stop them embarking on a course she considered disastrous. "…but a good king must know when not to exercise it," she simply said.

"And a good steward, too?" Éomer asked. He had brought his wine glass with him, Éowyn saw. She wondered how much he had drunk. Faramir and the king had drunk no more than politeness demanded, she knew, barely touching their lips to the glasses when the toasts were called. "I cannot imagine that Faramir was entirely happy with Aragorn's decision to ride out to greet us in disguise."

"No," Éowyn agreed, "but like the king with his seneschal, Faramir chooses his battles."

"And when he chooses to fight them, does he win?" Éomer raised his glass, but only took a small sip, she noticed.

"Sometimes." Éowyn shifted uncomfortably, suddenly unhappy with the direction the conversation had taken. Faramir was on the far side of the hall, talking to Pippin, while Gimli and Merry sat nearby, engaged in a conversation with more laughter in it than words. Faramir looked up when her eyes found him, but even from across the hall, she could see the shadow that lurked behind his quick smile.

"He looks happy enough now, at any rate," Éomer said. Éowyn had grown accustomed to other people failing to read Faramir's expressions as well as she could, but it still gave her a start to hear it coming from her brother, who had seemed so mighty to her as a child. "There were some in my party who wondered if the feast would be cancelled, because of the…"

"Because of what happened," Éowyn finished for him. She shook her head. "They would never cancel your welcome. The king knows what is important." She did not have to turn her head to know where the king was. Whenever he was in a room, everyone there was subtly centred on him. She often wondered what that felt like, for a man who had spent so many years walking alone and unobserved.

"But there are places he would rather be, I think," said Éomer quietly.

"No." Éowyn shook his head. "But…" She let out a breath. "He wants to be here, but he wants to be elsewhere, too. It is hard for men like him to let things unfold without them. He wants to be down in the city, scouring that loft for clues. He wants to be questioning witnesses."

Éomer smiled. "Are you talking about Aragorn or Faramir?"

"The king, although it is true of Faramir, too." She ran her fingertip around the rim of her glass, and looked at the lights sparkling in the surface of the untouched wine. She had come to understand Faramir, and because she could read him, she was learning how to read the king. "But did you notice? News was brought to him throughout the feasting. When the servers came with food and wine, they often brought notes, and he read them as soon as they were brought to him."

"I didn't see him do that," Éomer said, "and I was sitting next to him."

"No," Éowyn agreed, because she knew that nobody else had seen it, except for her and the queen. Éomer was accustomed to deeds and action, but Éowyn and the queen were women in a world of men, forced to live as watchers in the wings. "But if there have been fresh developments, he knows of them. And yet he is still here."

"Yes." Éomer took another sip of wine. As he did so, Pippin's laughter rang out, joyous and uninhibited. "And _there_ are two who will always be content no matter what dangers threaten them, as long as the food is plenteous and the fellowship good," Éomer said with a chuckle, nodding towards the two hobbits.

"You do them a disservice." Éowyn's voice was sharp again. "They are not children, and neither are they fools."

"I know that," said Éomer. "I have spent many weeks with them, and I have exchanged many letters with our new Master of Buckland. I know their worth. But they have the gift of taking pleasure in the moment, even in the darkest of times. They value friendship and fellowship and good hospitality, and there is little in this world more important than those."

"Yes," Éowyn agreed with a sigh.

"Éowyn…" Éomer took her hand again. Her fingers were slender, and could not escape. "What is wrong?"

"I am with child," she told him. She had not meant to do so, not like this.

"Éowyn!" He laughed with delight. "Another one!" His laughter faded. "Are you…?"

"Happy," she said. "Of course." Her smile was real. She pressed her free hand to her still-flat belly, lean and muscled from long hours in the saddle. "In Gondor, or so the _very solicitous_ old ladies tell me, a noble lady keeps herself to her own home when she is expecting a child and is seldom seen by those outside her household."

"They always were too keen on their rules and their etiquette in Mundburg," Éomer said, lapsing into the tongue of their shared home.

"Yes," Éowyn agreed. "How is Lothíriel? She stayed at home in Edoras, I believe."

"Of course," Éomer said. "Because she is…"

"Yes," Éowyn said, as the songs from her homeland came to an end, and a minstrel from Gondor stood up and sang of the great deeds of long-dead men.

* * *

"There are few answers," Aragorn said, "and those that there are only raise more questions."

The feasting was over, but some solicitous servitor had brought a tray of leftover morsels and a flagon of wine to Aragorn's private chamber. Éomer had poured himself a glass, but it remained undrunk. The others left the food untouched

"After Mínir passed on his warning, there were over a dozen archers with arrows ready nocked, watching that window for any movement," Aragorn said. "The first thing they saw was the glass breaking and the assassin falling. None of them loosed the arrow that killed him."

"Yet he was killed by an arrow," said Legolas. "It was in his throat when I saw him."

"Yes," Aragorn agreed.

Éomer was sitting with his wine glass resting on his lap, holding it in both hands. Faramir's hands were clasped together, pale with tension. Legolas was the only one of them standing. There was nobody else there. Gimli was with the hobbits, and Arwen and Éowyn were presiding over the end of the night's festivities.

"When I had learnt what I could from him," Legolas continued, "I went up to the place from whence he had fallen. There was much blood on the floor inside the window. He died there, I think."

"But we cannot find the man who killed him," Aragorn said. "If he was one of ours, he has not come forward."

"Someone in the crowd?" Éomer suggested. "Someone who happened to catch sight of the danger and shot an arrow just in time?"

"When those who were specifically tasked to watch for that danger failed to see it?" said Faramir. "Someone who shot an arrow without anyone seeing him do it? Someone who has failed to come forward and take the credit for saving his king? There is no man alive in the city who would not acclaim him."

The smell of cold meat drifted towards him, seasoned with cloves and honey. Aragorn pushed the tray further away from him. Even after fourteen years in Gondor, he preferred the scant, simple food of his travels to the rich portions that everyone so delighted in offering him. "And then there is the matter of the shouted warning," he said. "The warning that drew the attention of everyone present and told them exactly what they were witnessing. Our archers report that the warning came a moment _before_ they saw the assassin at the window."

"Just after a single bell sounded," said Faramir. "We heard a lone bell earlier, just before we left the Citadel." He looked pale and tired, a lock of hair falling across his face. "You remarked upon it, did you not?"

Aragorn nodded. "We will have to discover which tower housed that bell, and who rang it. It might have been innocent…"

"Or it might have been a signal." Éomer raised the glass to his lips, but lowered it without drinking.

"And then there is the matter of weaver's lodgings," Aragorn said, "and the hints that can be gleaned from it. Mínir reports that when he entered, the loft ladder and the rear rooms had been concealed behind bales and crates, but he thought he heard movement there. He is far from sure, but he believes that there might have been somebody else there, somebody who escaped through the window."

"What does the weaver say?" Éomer asked. "He has been taken into custody?"

Faramir nodded, clenching his fists even tighter, but it was Legolas who answered. "I was with him when he awakened. He was drunk, and he has little memory of anything that has happened this day. Somebody knocked on his door, he said. Just once, I asked, or was there a second knock later? He cannot remember, but he remembers opening his door, and he remembers waking up with a bleeding skull. There is nothing in between."

"Mínir believes him innocent," Aragorn said. "He believes him to be a man driven by despair to seek forgetfulness in a flagon of wine. He believes that he was unaware…"

"His blindness could have killed his king!" Faramir's head snapped up, and his eyes were suddenly blazing. "His _weakness_. Of that he is guilty beyond doubt."

"He was consumed by despair," Legolas said, "that much was clear to me."

"Despair is no excuse," said Faramir, but his voice was quieter now. Was he remembering his father? Was this sudden uncharacteristic anger directed at the father he could no longer confront? Perhaps. Or perhaps he just spoke as a Steward of Gondor, ashamed of the failings of someone he felt responsible for, although he had never met him.

"No," Aragorn agreed, "but it can explain, and we should remember that despair, and temper justice with understanding." He reached for the flagon and poured himself a glass of wine, but barely touched it to his lips. In the candlelight, it was almost black, swirling with shadows. "So that is how we stand," he said. "We have an assassin from the east; that much is certain, although I do not wish it spoken abroad. But who shouted the warning? Who killed him? If there was another man in the house when Mínir entered, who was he, and where did he go?"

"And why was he there?" Éomer asked.

"To aid him?" Faramir said, but his face was clouded with doubt.

"Or to hinder him?" said Legolas. "To kill him by jabbing an arrow into his throat, and then pushing him out of the window? There was blood inside the window, and there were certain… _signs_. But I am not sure of it," he said, when Faramir looked sharply at him. "But if such a man was there, then he left from the window. Mínir thought the jump was too far, but it is not. I did it. An agile Man could have done it, too, I believe."

"But why?" asked Éomer, draining his glass at last. "Why would be do it like this?"

 _A shadow,_ Aragorn thought. The whole thing was a shadow, to distract them from the truth. "But what is the truth?" he murmured. _And what should I do about it?_

* * *

So that was that, Mínir thought to himself. It was all over. Job done. He had found the assassin just in time, and although it hadn't gone to plan after that, at least the assassin had been stopped before he could carry out his hideous plan. _Because of me,_ he thought, unashamedly taking pleasure in it. It was often a thankless task, the one he had been given. Sometimes he knew that he was making a positive difference to Minas Tirith, but other times he was less sure. He had to live in the shadows. Sometimes, just sometimes, he had to win the trust of men with villainy in their hearts, and then betray that trust. It was all for the greater good, he told himself, but it never _felt_ good, not when they looked at him afterwards; not when he made his solitary way back home, and sat there alone, looking at his fractured face in the broken mirror.

But today… Today had been good. It _had_ been good, he told himself, for what could be better than saving the life of his king? Because of his skills and his contacts, a killer had been brought to bay. It was over. End of story.

But it wasn't, of course.

He felt aimless, walking alone through streets that teemed with noise and anger. He wanted to go back to the weaver's loft, to see if there were signs that he had overlooked, but he knew that anyone showing a light in that window would be torn to pieces by the crowd. He wanted to find the weaver himself, and talk to him. Mínir well knew what it was to hate yourself and sink into destructive misery. Did the weaver even know that his drunkenness had almost led to the death of the king? Had they told him?

 _I want to be the one to tell him,_ Mínir thought, _and tell him gently._ He found himself walking uphill, heading towards the gate that would take him to a higher level. But what was the point? The weaver would be securely imprisoned in the Citadel itself, and nobody as humble as Mínir would be allowed to see him.

Back down, then; down through the streets he knew so well. They should have been alive with partying and celebration. Instead every tavern and every street corner was packed with people who _seethed_. Someone had dared to attack the king! Blood had been shed almost at his very feet! "What will those Horse Lords think of us," he heard, "if this is the sort of welcome Minas Tirith gives to its guests?" It was one of those murdering Easterlings, was everywhere reported. The assassin had a brooch that labelled him as such, and before he had died, he had gasped something in their barbaric tongue.

They should not be allowed to get away with it; that much everybody was agreed upon. "If I had a sword, I would offer it to the king," one man declared, and another laughed, and said, "You would not be allowed to," but nobody who heard it liked that laughter. There were more promises of swords and axes. Furious and afraid, the men of Minas Tirith wanted war.

 _No,_ Mínir thought. _It isn't over at all. It has only just begun._


	4. Rumours

**Chapter four: Rumours**

From _After the War: The Wars of the First Century,_ by Beregond Falconer, F.A. 1327

Before the day was over, Minas Tirith was alive with the talk of war. Many wanted it. Outrage drove them, and their love for their king.

It is hard for us, looking back, to understand why they were so quick to wish for war. After all, they had recently lived through a war more dreadful than any of our Fourth Age wars. Those of us who lived through the War of the Southern Marches will well remember the terrible mixture of emotions that came with victory. There was triumph, yes, but stronger than that, there was relief that the dying was over. There was grief for those who had fallen, but often it was tinged with anger and the fear that they had fallen in vain. Above all, we were all determined that our children would never know such a war.

And yet, barely fourteen years after the end of the War of the Ring, the people of Minas Tirith spoke of war before their king had even uttered the word.

Why? The difference, I believe, comes from the nature of the war they had lived through. Many feel that the War of the Southern Marches was a futile one, but no-one who lived through the War of the Ring could ever doubt that it was a righteous war. They mourned their dead, yes, but they knew that they had died in a just cause, to save the whole of Middle Earth from evil. The end of the war brought relief and hope, unshadowed by the more troubled emotions that we felt twenty years ago.

In addition, the War of the Ring had brought them their long-awaited king. Even by F.A. 12, they were aware that they stood on the brink of a golden age, and they were willing to fight to ensure that this golden age came to pass; to preserve it for their children and their children's children. This was not the War of the Ring, but the cause, in their eyes, was no less just. It was a cause for which they were willing to die.

But few expected to die. Their confidence in their king was unshakable. The armies of Gondor had won many victories in the last decades of the rule of the Stewards, but overall, it had been a tale of retreat and defeat. Then the king arrived at the Pelennor, and the tide of battle turned. He led an army to the Black Gate, where against all hope, it was victorious.

It is easy to clamour for war when you believe that your king is incapable of leading you to anything other than a swift and total victory.

* * *

He was almost spent. For days, he had stopped only to change his horses. His own horse had been failing fast when he had reached the garrison north of the Morannon. He had taken food and drink from them, but refused their offer of a night's shelter. On a fresh horse, he had headed south into Ithilien, passing places where he had once ranged under Captain Faramir's command; then onwards, catching distant glimpses of the woods where the elves now dwelt.

He had not stopped there. He could not turn aside.

South of Henneth Annûn, he had changed horses again, receiving a fresh one from the garrison near that hidden place. "You're hurt," they had said, "and nearly spent. Come in and let us tend you. At least rest awhile." One of them had been an old comrade from his Ranger days. "Mablung, whatever your business, surely it can't be so urgent that you can't rest. You'll travel faster if you get some sleep."

But he had shaken his head in a no. If he stopped, he doubted he would have the strength to ride on again. He had tidings to bring, and he was the only one who could tell the tale. When his message was given, _then_ he could stop. Captain Faramir would take over, or even the king. It would no longer be his responsibility, and then, _then_ , could he let himself rest.

Not yet. Not now.

He stopped only for water and to rest his horse. Once, when he climbed out of the saddle, his knees buckled, and he fell down onto the soft grass. His head slumped forward, and his eyes wanted to close. Mounting again after that felt like dragging his body up the highest of mountains.

He passed a ruined cottage that stood beneath two trees that leant in towards each other, their branches entwining to form a single roof of leaves. Ducking low, he passed through woodland, scented with flowers. He saw pasture where once there had been wilderness. He saw fresh walls where once there had been tumbledown ruins.

Night slowed him down, although the full moon gave enough light to see by. There were roads in Ithilien now, and they were smooth enough to keep his horse from stumbling in the near darkness. Sometimes he saw distant lights, and once he passed through the yard of an inn, not yet open, its sign half-painted.

In the morning, he found a farmer who agreed to lend him his horse in exchange for the one he had taken from the garrison. "I'm travelling on the king's business," Mablung assured him. He could show no token to prove that he spoke truly, but the farmer did not ask to see one, merely took him at his word. Not so many years ago, foul things had wandered through the lands the farmer now called home, and now he was trusting a travel-stained stranger with his horse.

 _You should not trust so easily,_ Mablung wanted to tell him, but he needed the horse.

He rode on south, ever southwards. When he looked up, the sun dazzled him. When he shielded his eyes from it, the world around him started fading. Instead of the birdsong of Ithilien, he heard screams. Instead of flowers, he saw the flashing of curved blades in the sunlight and the red blaze of flames. He heard the pounding of a hundred horses, and shouting in a tongue that he could barely understand. He saw the dying face of a man who had been a friend, and felt once again the weakening grip upon his hand. "Go, Mablung. Get out now. There's still a chance. Take it. Tell the king-"

He was tugged out of memory by the scratching of a branch across his face. His horse had slowed almost to stopping. Mablung grasped the branch, and caught the faint scent of its leaves. And then other memories tried to take him, and he was back in Ithilien with Captain Faramir, crouching amidst leaves like this, protecting the borders of Gondor.

And that was still his task, although the borders had changed.

"I have to…" he said aloud.

"What?" said a voice from the behind him.

* * *

The silence was the strangest thing.

It was never silent in Meduseld. The Golden Hall sat on a high terrace above Edoras, but there were smoke-holes in its golden thatch, and the houses of Edoras were not so very far away. The Lord of the Riddermark dined in his great hall, surrounded by his Riders. Living, feasting and ruling all took place in the same great hall. Even in his private chamber, Éomer could hear the distant noises of Edoras, filtering through the thatch.

And always, always, he could hear the sound of horses.

There were no horses in the Citadel of Minas Tirith. The stables were on the level below, and the neighs and whinnies did not pass through the thick stone walls. Even when the Citadel was full of people, the stone took the sound and deadened it. They had feasted in one hall, and were housed in another. The throne room was in yet another building, in the tower of Ecthelion. It was a mighty cavern of a place, where a quiet whisper in a corner was drowned by the vast space between the pillars.

Éomer walked outside, passing the tower without entering it. In the courtyard, he could hear the gentle sound of falling water, like the stream that flowed through Edoras at home. But Edoras was never this quiet. Here, the guards around the White Tree stood in reverent silence. A vast city lay beneath them, but here in the courtyard, he could hear no sounds from it.

He headed for the battlements, and leant upon them, his forearms resting on the stone. On the level below, a chestnut mare was being exercised. It was not one of his, but it was a fine animal, tall and strong. Watching it, he was slow to realise that someone was approaching him from behind. He turned round as Aragorn was closing the final yards between them.

"I was watching the mare," Éomer said, with a smile. "It will not surprise you to know that."

"There are many more horses in Minas Tirith than there were in the days of Denethor." Aragorn came to stand beside Éomer, leaning against the battlements, looking out at the city below. "The stables have been enlarged, and there are many other stables now, down in the other levels. We are gradually regaining the lands that were lost to us, and we need horses for that."

"They are fine animals," Éomer said, "if that one is anything to go by."

"They are all fine animals," Aragorn said, "thanks to your kind gift of breeding stock. It was a kingly gift indeed, for your people lost many horses in the war. The horses of Gondor will never be as famed as the horses of the Riddermark, but perhaps we will not disgrace you if we should ride to war together, side by side."

There was a question there that needed to be asked, but Éomer let the silence stretch too long. Her exercise finished, the mare was led back to the stable, out of sight. Éomer heard nothing of it, not even the sound of her hooves on cobbled stone. "So quiet," he breathed, not meaning to. He felt the need to explain. "There are people down there in their tens of thousands, far more than live in Edoras, and yet we hear nothing of them. They could be sleeping."

"They are not," Aragorn said.

"No," Éomer said, remembering how the crowd had clamoured the day before. "But I grew up riding with my father's men. Then I had a command of my own, and although I commanded them, I rode alongside them. When we stopped for the night, we all shared the same camp fire, and we fell asleep to the sound of each other's snoring. Even now that I am king, I live in a crowded hall, loud with the sound of people and horses."

"While the lords of Gondor live behind stone walls, cut off from their people," Aragorn said.

"No," Éomer said. "I didn't mean…" He stopped, and let out a breath. _I only meant that our ways are different, and I am unused to this,_ he might have said, until he remembered that Aragorn, too, had not been born in this city of stone. Éomer had spent a few short years leading his éored across the grasslands of the Mark, but Aragorn had ridden with the Riders of Thengel, and had campaigned in the wilds beyond Gondor. The hobbits had first met him in a crowded tavern, and he had spent many decades mingling with the people he now ruled. As he had told Imrahil once, he was a captain of Rangers, and unused to cities and houses of stone.

"I know," Aragorn said. "I know you did not mean…" He echoed Éomer's hesitation, softening it with a smile. "But I am not as far removed from the people as it might seem. Sometimes I pass amongst them in disguise, as you saw two morns ago, when I came out to meet you. I can do that seldom, but I have people I can trust: people who can go to places that I cannot, and bring me news. And it is possible to see much, if you know where to look, and how to do so."

Aragorn half turned away, and seemed to be gazing down at the lowest level of all. Éomer wondered what he was seeing. Nearer towers and walls obscured the view, and if there were people moving there, Éomer could not see them.

Every day in Edoras, Éomer saddled his horse and rode through the streets, heading for the grasslands outside. Every day he passed houses and halls. Every day, he saw his people. "What are they doing now?" he asked, because high up in the Citadel, he could see nothing at all. "What do they feel?"

"Afraid," Aragorn said. "Afraid and angry. They know that our assassin came from the east. Things that should have been secret are shouted abroad. Few of us saw the brooch that he was wearing, yet news of it has been passed from person to person and now the whole city knows of it."

"How?" Éomer turned to face him. "How did that happen?"

Aragorn was gazing down at the city, his face troubled. "I do not know," he said.

"But you will find out," Éomer said, then wished that he had stayed silent, because Aragorn's expression turned even more grim. Éomer wondered suddenly what it was like for Aragorn to be surrounded by people who never doubted that he could perform miracles and knew all the secrets of men's hearts.

But Éomer, too, was a king, and although he was not of the lineage of Númenor, his people were worthy of song. "I will help," he said. "Whatever aid I can give you, I will. We will solve this thing together, you and I." _And if it should come to war,_ he thought, _then we will face it side by side._

* * *

Pippin had travelled for countless leagues, and had seen things that he had never dreamed of seeing. He had seen elves and ents, and he was a friend of kings. He had spent time in towers that seemed to a low-building hobbit to be as tall as mountains. He had learnt how to use a sword. He was becoming as familiar with the lore and legends of Gondor as he was with the names of his longfathers back home.

But never, in all his journeying, had he entirely overcome a hobbit's natural distrust of rivers.

The Anduin was broad and slow, but as it neared the stone supports of the bridge, it started to race. It looked horribly deep as it surged through the gaps in a rage. At least he couldn't see much of it, since he had to stand on tiptoes to see over the edge. Faramir and Éowyn were leaning on the parapet, apparently taking pleasure in gazing down at the water below.

"It was finished last year," Faramir said. "There are other bridges, but this is the greatest, although it is but a shadow of the great bridge built in the days of Elendil, that housed the Dome of Stars. But although it does not equal it in size, in its style and its beauty, it is like that great bridge of old."

"That's nice," said Pippin, as the water raced under him, all sneaky and invisible beneath his feet

"The first stone was laid on the very spot where Boromir and I stood as the old bridge was being destroyed," Faramir said. "That was not Elendil's bridge, of course, but a bridge made in haste when we regained the eastern parts of Osgiliath. It was an unlovely thing, but it played its part. When Sauron's forces regained the eastern shores, we had no choice but to destroy it."

"Are you rebuilding the whole city?" Pippin asked. Pushing away from the parapet, he turned towards the eastern shore, where towers and domes rose high against the distant mountains.

"No," Faramir said, as he and Éowyn started to walk across the bridge. Pippin followed them, but Merry paused for a moment, as if he actually _liked_ looking at the river. Mind you, he _was_ a Brandybuck. "We are keeping the crossings, because we need them. We are making it fair again, but there was too much ruin, and too many buildings that are far beyond repair. In time, it could be that Osgiliath grows as large it was in the early days of Gondor, but I think it more likely that new cities will arise in places that are as yet untouched by the hand of man." He sighed. "Sometimes a thing can fall so far that it can never truly be repaired." Éowyn took his hand as he said that, Pippin noticed, although their clasped hands were almost hidden by their sleeves.

"It's already bigger than anything we've got at home," Pippin said cheeringly. "And it's very beautiful."

They reached the far bank of the river, where once the orcs had prowled. A broad avenue led eastward, lined with buildings. Pippin wondered which of them were old ruins that had been restored, and which were entirely new. He could see no clues in the style of building, although here and there he saw lumps of old, worn stone, sitting at the base of newer walls.

As they walked along the avenue, they met travellers heading towards the bridge. Down a side street, women were bustling around with baskets on their arms, and beyond them, he heard the sound of a market. A boy ran laughing past, a shaggy dog at his heels. Someone shouted a name from a high window. On a balcony above, two men were sitting and drinking, watching the world pass by below them. They nodded their heads respectfully when they saw Pippin watching them, or maybe they were bowing to Faramir.

"…saw it with my own eyes," someone said from behind a half-closed window. "Yesterday afternoon," he heard, but the next words were drowned out by the sound of passing horses. "…one of those barbarians from the east," the voice was saying, and there was a clamour of other voices raised in anger.

Pippin wanted to hurry on past. He knew what had happened the day before, of course. When Faramir had suggested a trip to Osgiliath, Merry and Pippin had exchanged a look, as they had tried to decide whether to accept it. Surely Faramir had more urgent things to do! Or had Faramir volunteered to keep them amused, to keep the foolish little hobbits out of the way, while Aragorn and Éomer dealt with important matters back in the city? But Faramir had smiled, and said, "It will be a pleasure for both of us to show our fair places to our cherished guests, if you have not yet had your fill of travelling."

So they had accepted, and Pippin was glad of it. On the ride across the plain, Faramir and Éowyn had looked happier than they had looked at the feast the night before. Faramir had looked desperately tense as they had ridden through Minas Tirith, but once they were out on the rich meadows of the Pelennor, he had begun to relax.

So it was for Faramir's sake that Pippin wanted to hurry past those voices. It was too late, of course. Faramir had heard them, and looked troubled once more. Éowyn was still holding his hand, standing shoulder to shoulder with him, almost as tall as he was.

"Can we see your house in Emyn Arnen from here?" Pippin asked, as brightly as he could. "Now that's a truly beautiful place. It's a shame Sam hasn't been able to come and visit the gardens. He'd love them, I know."

"Not from here," Faramir said. He placed his free hand on Pippin's shoulder, and at least he was smiling again. "But if we go to the eastern edge of the city, there is a tower we can climb, and you can see it from there, if the light is good."

"That would be nice," said Pippin, and so they wandered onwards, past buildings that were not yet complete, and ruins that seemed to have been deliberately left, perhaps as a way to honour the dead.

The tower was almost at the edge of the inhabited part of Osgiliath, although beyond it, there were occasional ruins, and sometimes strangely shaped mounds, where grass had grown over ancient stones. As Pippin climbed the spiral stairs, each new level brought him a better view. The boundary of the inhabited part of the city was marked by a tall stone wall, he saw, and the road passed through a great gate. Although it stood open, and nobody was making any attempt to stop anyone from travelling through it, Pippin saw that it could be sealed and guarded if enemies came from the east. There were guards on duty, and they forever watched the road.

It gave him a start to see it. "Merry," he whispered, when they paused on the third level of the tower, while Faramir and Éowyn came up more slowly behind them. "I thought everything was peaceful now there's a king again. I thought…"

"Hush," Merry warned him, as echoes from the stairs told them that Faramir and Éowyn had nearly reached them. "Can we see Emyn Arnen yet?" he asked them.

"There!" said Faramir, pointing, but Pippin's attention was drawn by something else. Coming from the east, on the road that led from Mordor, a lone horseman was approaching them. He was riding fast, but he was sitting strangely in the saddle, as if he wasn't…

"He's going to fall," Pippin said. "He's…" Clutching a stone carving, he leant forward, the wind cold on his cheeks. "He's fallen off!" he gasped, as the horse raced onwards, and his rider lay at the side of the road, and didn't get up.

* * *

The knife was still keen. It sat on the desk in front of him, glittering in the morning light. Daerion touched it softly, then slowly curled his fingers around its handle. He raised it up, turning it this way and that, studying the well-honed sharpness of the blade.

Once, long ago, it had belonged to a great captain who had called himself Thorongil. A foolish boy named Daerion had managed to accost him once, and begged, _please, please, let me follow you._ The City Guard had rejected him because he was too young. Thorongil had rejected him too, but with kindness. He had given him this knife, and urged him to give his love and his loyalty to a cause, and not to a single man.

The knife was still keen, but the hand that held it was growing old. Daerion commanded the Great Gate, but an enemy had found his way into the city, intending harm to the king.

Oh, it was not their fault; he had heard his men reassuring each other about that in the mess hall. The Great Gate was open to all, and although it was still well guarded, most travellers came and went without hindrance. The assassin must have strolled through, looking like any other honest traveller. This enemy was no orc or goblin, obvious at a glance. He had not come against Gondor in open battle, marching beneath the banners of Sauron. Instead, he had sneaked in like a spy, and had lived amongst the unsuspecting people of Minas Tirith, and had betrayed their trust in the worst possible way.

 _Not our fault._ They had said that again and again, because at heart they did not truly believe it. There was only one way into the city, and Daerion and his men watched over it. They would have seen the enemy enter; seen him, and done nothing to stop him.

Daerion placed the knife back down on the desk, and rested his hand on the blade. He closed his eyes, and even though fourteen years had passed, he saw once again the moment when the Great Gate had fallen and he had failed in his command. He remembered the Nazgûl. Every day he remembered the Nazgûl, although his king, his captain, had healed him and absolved him of any wrongdoing.

"No," Daerion had told the men in the mess hall. When he had finally stepped forward and shown himself, they had looked at him so desperately, so hopefully. "It wasn't your fault. Never think that it was your fault." And they had relaxed, trusting him, believing him.

What would they think if he abandoned them now and resigned his command? What would the king think? What would the people think?

He opened his eyes, and with a sigh, stood up, and left the room. He crossed the training yard, nodding and smiling at the men who were sparring there, and reached the gate that led to the city. A young man was standing there, barely sixteen by the looks of him. "Captain," the young man said, his voice cracking. "Captain Daerion!"

"What is it?" Daerion asked wearily.

"I want to fight!" the boy declared. "Please, _please_ , give me a sword and let me fight."

Daerion had begged much the same, of course, but that was long ago, in another Age of the world, and Daerion was no Thorongil, to make a young man desperate to follow him, and him alone. He knew that he was appreciated by those who served under him, and he had come to accept that he was a good captain in his way, but he was not the sort of hero of whom young boys dreamed. He was too old, for a start, and he had never ventured onto distant plains or charged with banners streaming.

"Why do you want to fight?" he asked.

"Because they're saying there's going to be war over this!" the boy cried, his eyes blazing. "There _should_ be war, that's what I say. How dare those murdering devils try to hurt our king? I want to fight. I want to teach them a lesson. I want to avenge him."

"He isn't dead," Daerion said quietly, "and doesn't need you or anyone to avenge him."

"But-"

"No," Daerion said, and the habit of half a lifetime made it so easily into a command. The boy stopped, biting back whatever he had been about to say. "Do you remember the War?" Daerion asked, more gently, but of course the boy did not. He would have been two years old, three at most, and doubtless evacuated to Lossarnach with his mother. Did he have a younger brother who also dreamed of war? Very likely. Countless babies had been born in the years after the fall of Sauron, and the first of them were thirteen now, almost old enough to think themselves men. Within another ten years, they would outnumber the older folk who still remembered the war. "It was terrible," Daerion told him now. "Don't be so swift to seek another war. Go home, lad. Go home."

But what lad of sixteen, lost in dreams of battle, had ever listened to an old man like him?

* * *

His captain was looking down at him, holding his hand. Had he been wounded? Orcs! There were orcs in Ithilien and-

Mablung let out a breath and blinked fiercely to try to clear the confusion from his mind. Wounded, yes; he had been wounded, and then he had ridden too far and too fast. But his captain was here now. He had reached his captain and now…

No. Not his captain any more. "No," he murmured. Always and forever his captain, even though he was Lord Steward now, and every man's captain below the king. But, "Captain," he said, the old title slipping out from him, even though it was the wrong one. "I was trying to find you. I was making for Emyn Arnen. I met someone - a farmer, a traveller? - and he said you were in Minas Tirith, so I changed…"

Changed his route. Turned right at the crossroads and headed away from the mountains. The farmer had startled him badly, and he'd almost drawn his sword on him, forgetting that Ithilien was at peace now. He'd considered going to Emyn Arnen anyway, in case the farmer was lying to him, but he'd known that if he'd reached Emyn Arnen, only to be told that Faramir wasn't there after all, he wouldn't have found the strength to turn around and carry on.

"Did I make it?" he asked. He had no memory of approaching the city; of riding through the Great Gate into the cold embrace of its great stone walls. He had spent his life in the wilds, in Ithilien during the war, and in places yet wilder. There were gardens in Minas Tirith now, but not enough for him. At every time of day, the great towers cast their shadows. "Am I…?"

"You are in Osgiliath," his captain said.

And Mablung remembered; remembered, and was ashamed. He'd seen the towers of Osgiliath growing tall, and had known that he was almost there. The nearer he'd come to the end, the harder he had pushed himself. Almost there. Almost there. And then… "I fell," he murmured, turning his face away. The guards must have scooped him up and carried him into Osgiliath, but why, then, was his captain here? How had they known to send for him?

"By chance, I was in Osgiliath when you reached it," Faramir said, answering the unspoken question. He had always had the gift of understanding the hearts of men, and he used the gift with kindness. 'Reached,' he had said, but Mablung had fallen before reaching it. "You have reached the end of your journey, Mablung," Faramir said. "Tell me your news, and then you can rest."

* * *

Faramir looked grim when he emerged from the guard house. "What is it?" Pippin asked him. "Who was that man? What did he say? What…?" He stopped the flood of questions. Éowyn and Merry had the same questions burning in their eyes, but Pippin was only one who babbled them out loud.

"Mablung," Faramir said. "He was a Ranger under my command in Ithilien, a good one."

He started to walk, and they followed him along a narrow lane between buildings, until they reached a quiet courtyard. There were shrubs in it, covered with bunches of trailing yellow flowers. Although it was not yet midsummer, many petals had fallen, and the ground was soft beneath Pippin's feet. There was a bench there, and Faramir invited them to sit down, but he himself remained standing. Pippin, who had sat down, stood up again.

"For the last few years," Faramir said, "he has been far away from here, in the dead lands north of Mordor." His voice was quiet. He had led them here, Pippin realised, because he didn't want anyone to overhear his words. Pippin glanced round anxiously, but all he saw was a brightly coloured bird perched on some jutting masonry. "Those lands were once part of Gondor," Faramir said, "and we are slowly regaining many lands that we lost. Most of them have fallen into ruin, and have become wild places, and since the fall of Sauron, nobody has claimed them."

"But if they did?" That was Merry. Pippin looked at him, surprised, wondering why he was asking it.

"If they do, we concede their right to it," Faramir said, "as we have done in Rohan, and as Aragorn, as king of Arnor, has done in your Shire. And as we hope to do in Harad, too, where our aim is not to conquer, but to make treaties of peace, if they will have them. But much of the old kingdom of Gondor is empty and ruined, and if anyone has lived in them, they have done so in fear, assailed always by wild things in the dark. Some of those lands will remain forever dead, or if they are healed, it will not be in this Age of the world."

Faramir was pacing, his booted feet crushing the soft yellow petals. Pippin wondered if he should be saying something, but Éowyn, who knew Faramir best, was silent, waiting patiently for him to continue. Pippin bit his tongue, and waited, too.

"But into many of them, we are bringing healing," Faramir said. "We are growing plants in places that were once a blasted wilderness. We are bringing the protection of Gondor to people who once cowered under the rod of Sauron. But there were few people in the place where Mablung was sent. Armies from the east passed through it during the war, but nobody has been able to live there for many years."

"Until now?" Pippin guessed

"Until now," Faramir agreed, "although in truth, it is a hard sort of living that we ask of them. Precious little grows there yet. They live in small outposts, more like garrisons than towns, although some have taken their families with them. But Mablung did not. He was a scout. _Is_ a scout," he corrected himself. "Like many of my Rangers, he had grown so accustomed to a perilous life in the wilds, that he wished to continue with it, and so be became a scout. A… spy." He hesitated before saying the word, as if he was ashamed of it.

"Who was he spying on?" Pippin asked, then wished he hadn't. Faramir had looked ashamed, after all.

"In the hills and grasslands hundred of miles north-east of the Morannon," Faramir said, "there are many warring tribes. We have always called them Easterlings, although they do not think of themselves as coming from the east; the tribes further east have always been their enemies. For centuries, they have warred amongst themselves, clan against clan. Sauron briefly united many of them under his banner, but when he fell, they turned on each other again. But in the last few years, they have begun to draw together again. A strong lord has emerged, strong enough and determined enough to unite them. And they have begun to move."

"To move?" Éowyn asked. Alone of all of them, she had sat down, Pippin noticed, although she sat with her back erect, and her hands clasped tightly on her lap.

"So Mablung reports." Faramir raked a hand through his hair: a nervous gesture Pippin had never seen from him before. It occurred to him suddenly that perhaps Faramir had only suggested the visit to Osgiliath because he hoped to receive rumours from the east. "Our outposts were hundred of miles away from the lands claimed by those clans. They were no threat. But they were destroyed. Mablung came back from one day to find them burning, and almost everyone dead or dying. The few survivors are struggling home, but he rode on ahead to warn us."

"To warn you?" Pippin asked. The walls were too high, and he couldn't see over. He imagined armies of wild savages even now marching through Ithilien.

"The clans are moving westward," Faramir said. "Hundreds of them. Thousands. They have made their intentions plain. They mean to challenge us."

"Could this mean war?" Pippin asked, but Merry was speaking at the same time. "…that thing yesterday?" was all Pippin heard.

Faramir nodded his head, but which question he was answering, Pippin could not tell.


	5. A Window on the East

**Chapter five: A Window on the East**

From _Tales of the Clans,_ as told by Bahadir the Singer, in the fourth winter of the Twelveyear of the Silver Horse

This tale was told by Canan of the Clan of the Red Sun, and was passed by her to her daughter and thence to her daughter's daughter, and from her to me, her third son.

When the Eye departed and the towers of Mordor crumbled, times were hard for our people. Many of our menfolk died far away from home, following their lords. The lords had sworn themselves to Sauron, and what could our menfolk do but obey the will of those who commanded them? Far away from home they fell, and there is no mound for them beneath the stars. They died outside the cold walls of the city of stone, and their bodies did not return home to us. In vain did the spirits of their fathers search for them, to show them the way to the realm that lies beyond the grave.

Our world became a young man's world. The men of fighting age had ridden away, and barely half returned. Many of these were broken, their pride shattered by defeat. It was left to the boys to lead us, and the old men, those deemed too old to ride away. And it fell to the women, too, for with our menfolk gone to war on distant plains, it was the women who took up their blades and stood ready to defend the halls of their lords.

When Sauron fell, we returned to our old ways and made war upon ourselves, clan against clan. But some there were who saw more clearly. Some there were who said that if one clan could do much, how much more could all the clans do, if they united under one banner? Gondor had united under their proud northern king, and Gondor had prevailed.

Why were we killing each other, they said, when we could be killing the men of the west? We had lost so many. If we destroyed those who remained, who would stand in the way when the king of Gondor came against us, wishing to become king over all the world?

"Yes!" said the old men, and, "Yes!" said the women, for our brothers and our fathers had fallen far from home, and we had no mounds to anoint with our tears. Their spirits wandered lost before the walls of Minas Tirith, and we wanted them home again.

The young men were proud and fearless. They wanted the clans to unite, but they argued fiercely over who would be the lord of lords who united them. The old men were cautious. They wanted the clans to unite, but they wanted us to stay in our ancestral lands, and wait to see if the king of Gondor came against us.

But the women…? The women were bold. Our brothers and our fathers were lost, and we wanted them home again. We wanted the clans to ride even to Minas Tirith itself, and make corpses and widows of everyone who lived there.

And this time, when the army rode, not all the women were left behind.

* * *

Crouching by the stream, Kabil cleaned the blood from his blade with a damp cloth, then folded the cloth around until he found a dry part of it, and wiped the blade dry again. The cloth was ruined, stained with the blood of the men of the west. He folded it neatly, and put it in his pouch. Leave no trail. That was what he had always been taught. Leave no sign that could lead enemies to your lord.

Not that there was anyone left alive to follow them. The men of Gondor had been slaughtered, and their women and children with them. Only a few had been spared: survivors on foot who could not follow them; survivors who would bring the tale to those who needed to hear it. Kabil had been unsure about the women and the girl children at first, because in all the old tales of his clan, war was a thing between men. But Hasad, grim-faced and merciless in his chariot, had told them that these women and children of Gondor were the ones who most needed to die. To send a message, he had said. A message that the clans were strong.

"We are strong!" Kabil had shouted, along with all the others.

A message that they were united. A message that they were here, moving into these lands that no clan had ever dared call their own. A message that they were ready to face him, the mighty king of Gondor who claimed dominion over the whole of the west. A message that they had never been his to claim, and never would be.

A message that he should fear them.

"They will fear us!" Kabil had shouted, his blade flashing brightly in his hand.

And fear them, they had. The men of Gondor were doughty fighters, but even the strongest of fighters could not withstand a force of over two hundred, with chariots and mounted archers, and men like Kabil, skilled with the blade. It was a greater fighting force than any clan could have mustered alone, but it was only a fraction of the strength that had stayed behind. Hasad led the strike force. Behind them, beyond the Brown Lands, was Samir, the lord of lords, with an army five thousand strong.

His blade clean, Kabil dared to approach Hasad. Hasad had been wounded, an arrow gouging deeply through the muscle of his upper arm. His charioteer was one of the dozen who had died, and Hasad had refused to accept another. He had driven his own chariot away from the killing fields, and the bandage around his arm was still bright with fresh blood. "Yes, Kabil?" Hasad said.

Kabil prostrated himself, because Hasad was still his lord, even though Samir had overall command of this enterprise of theirs. It was Hasad's knife, and not Samir's, that had made the scar on Kabil's neck. "What command do you have for me, lord?" he asked.

"To stay with me," Hasad said, "and the men of our clan. The others will depart. They serve other lords, and I don't trust them, so I'll send them away. Hasad's men do not need them! Every one of us is as strong as ten!"

"And then…?" Kabil asked before he could stop himself.

His lord knocked him down again with the back of his hand. "To obey without question," Hasad said coldly, but then his expression softened. Kabil was his brother, after all, and they had once been as close as anyone could afford to be, in the dark times of their growing. All that had changed, of course, when Hasad had been chosen for lordship, after the old lord and most of his generation had been slaughtered outside the great white city of stone.

"We have sent a message with our blades," Hasad said, "and the king of Gondor will answer. His answer will come in the form of men. We will lie in wait for them, and kill them if we can, and hinder them if we cannot kill them."

"And if we can't do that?" Kabil asked, despite the risk of another beating.

"We wait," Hasad said, as despite the bandage, a snaking track of blood began to trickle down his arm. "Samir and his army will be here soon."

* * *

For ever more, the Anor Stone more would show the dying hands of Denethor, withering in the flame. Aragorn had the strength to wrest it to his will, but even so, when he first raised the cloth from the stone, it was those hands that he saw. Whatever else he saw afterwards, it was those hands that he most clearly remembered.

He could not entrust such a stone to Faramir, although in the days of the old kings, the steward had always had the right to use them. He could not even ask Faramir to try. The Dúnedain in the north, who served as stewards and councillors in Arnor, could not use it, for even they could not fight past the vision of Denethor's dying. The stones of the northern kingdom were lost, but that of Orthanc remained.

At first, Aragorn had intended to set the Orthanc Stone up in Orthanc, and had cleared the tower for that purpose. But in the end, after much thought, he had sent the Orthanc Stone to Arnor, entrusting it to his steward in Annúminas. The Anor Stone he kept. If the stones had been closer, they could have communicated with each other with little effort, but between Minas Tirith and Annúminas, there were too many leagues. Aragorn could reach his steward, but only faintly, and only with a great effort of will.

The Anor Stone was housed once more at the top of the Tower of Ecthelion, and he alone possessed the key to the chamber. It was a bleak room without decoration, because what comfort could there be in a room that housed such a stone? The only furniture was a chair. It had always been exhausting to force a palantír to show you what you wished to see, or so said the books of lore. Fighting past the vision of Denethor made it even more draining. Sometimes Aragorn staggered back from the palantír, slumped into the chair, and did not descend the many stairs until the morning.

He seldom used it. Far away from any other stone, the visions it could give him were limited, even if he fought it with all his strength. But sometimes they were enough.

Reaching out, Aragorn grasped the cloth that covered the stone. In the west, the sun was sinking below the mountains. Its dying light slanted through the window in a great golden beam, painted with motes of dust. He breathed in, and out again. The sun passed below the mountain peak, and the light faded into grey shadow.

It was time. Aragorn pulled the cloth from the stone, and saw once again the dying hands of the last ruling steward of Gondor, crumbling like ashes in the flames.

* * *

Curled up on the window seat, Pippin looked out across the dark Pelennor, past the distant lights of Osgiliath, to Mordor in the east. It was from the east that the enemy armies would come marching. They would follow the route that Aragorn's army had taken to the Black Gate. Unless they found some way to cross the river, perhaps at Cair Andros, and came surging through the farmland north of Minas Tirith…

"They won't get this far." Merry was cupping a hot drink in his hands, and when he came close to the window, the steam clouded the glass. "They'll be stopped. Aragorn knows about them now. He'll do something."

"Unless they try to kill him again. Because that was them, too; that's what they're saying. One of them was hiding here for weeks. What if he wasn't alone?" Pippin pulled his knees up against his chest. "What if they manage it next time?"

"They won't," said Merry.

He said it too quickly, too urgently. He was playing the older and wiser one, reassuring his young cousin. Mustn't let the little ones worry. Must hide the truth from them. "I'm not-!" Pippin began, but then he saw how tightly Merry was gripping his cup. Could it be that Merry, too, was afraid? Could it be that he had spoken so fervently, not merely to reassure Pippin, but because he refused to believe anything else himself?

Merry was eight years older than Pippin, and he was Master of Buckland now, while Pippin was just his father's heir. But what did such things matter? Even Gandalf, at times, had seemed to feel fear.

"Are you afraid?" Pippin asked. "I am."

"Yes." Merry sank down on the window seat next to him. "Do you think they'll send us home? If there's war…"

His voice trailed off. "There wasn't supposed to be war ever again," Pippin said sadly. That was what Pippin had always told himself, anyway. That was why it had been such a horrible shock to arrive home and see what damage had been done to the Shire in their absence. Pippin had raised an army of Tooks, and he and Merry had been commanders in the Battle of Bywater, but that was supposed to be the end of it. Oh, they had ridden around the Shire in their mail shirts and their helmets, but only because it hadn't meant anything. These were pretty costumes, given to them by friends, and they had impressed the younger hobbits. It was safe to wear the accoutrements of war, because they had known all along that they would never have to wear them in earnest again.

"But if there is," Merry said, "do you want to go home? Part of me does. But…"

Pippin had a wife and a little boy. He had a father who was fading, not likely to last many more years. He had a home, and despite all his travelling, it was a home that suited him.

But at home, in the quiet of the Shire, there were such _dreams!_ This was the place he dreamed of, and he had friends here, too: good friends, who had shared things with him that nobody at home could ever understand.

"I do, as well," Pippin said, "but at the same time, I don't. I don't want to go away and leave them. I don't…" But then there was a knock at the door, and he knew that one of their friends was coming. Their friends had far more important things to worry about than the anxieties of two small hobbits.

And so Pippin uncurled himself, rose to his feet, and went to the door, smiling. Without any prompting or collusion, Merry was doing exactly the same.

* * *

The last candle had almost burnt down. When Arwen entered, she brought with her the light from the hallway outside. But then, Aragorn thought, she had always been his light.

"No," she said, "stay where you are," when he made to stand up from the low settle, draped with worn velvet. She took a taper to the guttering candle, and used it to light fresh candles in a branching metal stand.

Flame. Dying hands withering in flame. Aragorn passed his hand across his eyes.

Arwen lit the last candle, and as each flame grew, the light became warmer. She stood between him and the flames, her body slender, her hair shining, and her hands soft and white, and utterly alive. Then she sat down beside him, placed her hand on his, and waited.

Long minutes passed. He could have lost himself in such a simple, gentle touch, but this was not the time for it. "The stone showed me little that I had not already guessed," he said. "It confirmed Mablung's tale, but I never doubted it. It showed me more, things that Mablung and his fellow scouts, for all their skill, have been unable to discover. The army is real, and it is coming."

"You feared it would happen one day," said Arwen, who knew everything that he knew.

"Yes," Aragorn agreed, watching the shadows that coiled at the heart of each candle flame. "I knew they were uniting," he said, because the scouts had played their parts well, and this was not the first time he had used to stone to look into the east. "I judged that they were doing so because they feared that I would come against them in force, and they wished to be ready. I judged that they would stay in their ancestral lands, and raise no sword against us unless we rode against them first, and since I had no intention of doing that…" He let the words trail, closing his eyes.

Arwen said nothing, merely sat beside him, touching him. It was enough.

He opened his eyes again. "But the stone showed me some good news, at least. The refugees that Mablung spoke of have been brought to the garrison near the Morannon, and are safe there, for now. Mablung must be told. He will be pleased."

"As am I," Arwen said.

"And I," Aragorn said, as the candle flames flickered and the air turned warm with their heat. "I should not have sent them into the Brown Lands. I thought it was safe. The clans have never claimed those lands, or anywhere near them. I thought it was safe, but there were signs. These last few months, there have been signs. I should have heeded them. I should have called them back."

Most people would have said, _You were not to know_. His chancellor would have said that, and all his councillors in the south. Arwen just held his hand, and sat beside him, quiet in the candlelight.

"And now they are dead," Aragorn said, "and an army rides towards us. The assassination attempt was a shadow." He felt a shiver run through him. It was a shadow that still fell upon his heart. "Questions need to be asked, and questions need to answered. I would not ride to war because of that, no matter how the people call for it."

"They call loudly," Arwen said.

"Yes," Aragorn agreed. He had asked the people of Minas Tirith to acclaim him as their king, and he had refused to enter the city until they had done so. He had given them their voice, and they were beginning to learn how to use it. "But this… This is a cause that demands that we take up arms. We must ride out to face it."

"Must you lead them?" Arwen asked, after a moment of silence.

"Yes," Aragorn said. "Yes, I think I must."

Arwen understood so much, but she also loved him, and so she pulled him into an embrace. "Do not blame yourself…"

"I do not," Aragorn said. It was not entirely true, of course. It was his decision that had sent the scouts and the pioneers into the Brown Lands, but he was king of a vast kingdom, and there was still much evil in the world. People would die as a result of his commands. It was the burden that all captains bore, and kings bore most of all. He had begun to learn that lesson many decades ago in the north. He had travelled as Thorongil to learn it more deeply. People would die because of his commands. If they did, all he could do was go forward. He would learn from his mistakes, and make sure that the next command saved more people than died because it.

"But if we ride to war," he said, "I must lead them. This much I have seen."

* * *

Beortrod's coat was bright and gleaming, and although he took the food that Éomer had brought for him, it was obvious that he was well fed. Of course he was. The stable master of Minas Tirith knew his job well, and he had a team of able stable hands beneath him. But no Rider of the Riddermark could entirely abandon his horse to the care of another, no matter how skilled that person was. Whenever he stayed in Minas Tirith, Éomer visited the stable daily. His men did the same, he knew.

"Perhaps we will go for a ride later today," Éomer told Beortrod. Shaking the last crumbs from his palm, he patted the horse's proud neck. "But you have borne me well on a long journey. Rest now, and enjoy the care of these brave lads."

Outside, fine rain was falling, although it was still warm. The Citadel guards opened the gate as he approached it, and he passed through the tunnel, and out into the courtyard above. As he did so, he passed two of his Riders going the other way, with treats for their horses in their hands. They were men from his old éored, and he smiled at them, playing their captain, rather than their king. "I am returning from the same errand," he told them.

They would need their horses soon enough, if the things that Aragorn and Faramir told him were true.

Despite the rain, Éomer made once again for the battlements, but this time he looked down not at the city, but at the fields outside its walls. He saw the place where Théoden had fallen, marked now by a simple stone memorial. He saw the hillock where he had set his banner and resolved to make a last stand worthy of song, as doom approached along the river. Then the standard of Gondor had unfurled on the foremost ship, and hope had been reborn in his heart. Later, he and Aragorn had met on the battlefield, but Éomer had no memory of where on the field that had been.

"Should I send to Edoras for more men?" he asked. This time, he knew without turning round that Aragorn had seen him on the battlements and approached him.

By the dampness of his hair, Aragorn had been outside for some time. He had spent most of his life in the wilds, and even now, Éomer knew, he did much of his thinking outside. How many decisions about the future of Gondor had been taken out here on the battlements, or in a garden beneath the trees?

Let this be another, then.

"I cannot raise a full muster," Éomer said. "I cannot neglect the safety of my own realm, with Elfwine still so young. I could raise several thousand, given time, under Erkenbrand in the west. If speed is needed, Elfhelm can bring four companies from the Eastfold, almost a thousand men. If they ride fast and the messenger rides faster, they will be here within two weeks. They-" He broke off. Although Aragorn had not spoken, Éomer knew the answer he would have given. "It is too long."

Aragorn nodded. "If we leave at all, we need to leave soon." He looked tired, as if he had not slept the night before. For his part, Éomer had slept deeply, and dreamed of fierce battle at the head of his éored. He was not a king in his dreams. "You came with thirty men?"

"Thirty men, good warriors all," Éomer confirmed, although they had come with him as his honour guard on a mission of friendship. In some lands, Éomer suspected, an honour guard would consist of courtiers in fair array, but to a king of the Riddermark, no honour was greater than to be escorted by the best warriors in his realm. "So it is war, then," he said, when Aragorn said nothing.

"I fear it could be, yes."

His dreams had been good ones: fellowship and great deeds and glory. But Aragorn had said, 'I fear,' and Éomer had seen enough of the grief and misery of war to understand his disquiet. But, "My men are yours," he said. "They ride where I ride, and I…? I ride with you."

The rain was falling harder now, and water was dripping from Aragorn's hair. "I do not invoke the Oath of Cirion," he said. "This is a threat, yes, but it is not yet one that strikes at the heart of us. You rode from Edoras expecting a peaceful summer in Gondor, leaving a peaceful realm behind you. Should you-"

"I ride with you," Éomer said firmly. It was not what he had expected when he had renewed the Oath of Eorl. He had hoped for a long peace to rebuild his realm, but when he had thought of war, he had imagined riding to the aid of Gondor at the head of a thundering army. He had never thought that it would be with just thirty men. "And it does strike at the heart of us. They tried to kill you."

"There are questions about that," Aragorn said. "It may be that it will fall to Faramir to search for the answers to those, while we are away."

"Then most surely will I ride with you," Éomer said, trying for a laugh, and managing it. "I am not one for this game of spies and deceit; of answers unearthed in taverns and the dark. Let us ride to war, as we did before the Black Gate itself, on the eve of doom."

Clouds parted, and sunlight came through, although it was still raining. Éomer turned away from the sun, looking for the rainbow. "Send for Elfhelm and his men, if you wish it," Aragorn said. "Send them to the riverbank by Cair Andros. I will send provisions to the garrison there, enough to feed them. If we have need of them, they can cross the river there and come up behind us. Either that, or…"

The rainbow was there suddenly, vivid in the northern sky. Away to the north, the rain was even heavier, a grey haze covering the river. "Or?" Éomer prompted.

"There are things I must tell you, Éomer," Aragorn said, "ere we ride out to war."

* * *

Mínir knew that they had come for him. There were two of them, and they had shrouded themselves in cloaks, but not well enough to hide their swords. And who else in the crowded tavern was wearing a cloak? It was warm night, and the earlier rain only made it feel warmer. One of them stood just outside the open door, ready to block it if he needed to. The other headed into the tavern, clearly searching for someone.

Searching for him.

Mínir sighed. He had nursed his pint for over an hour, drinking just enough to cover the fact that he was only here to eavesdrop. All his work gone to waste. He took one last mouthful, and pushed the rest to the stranger beside him. "It's yours," he said, "if you want it."

He was better than the cloaked man at slithering through a crowd of drinkers. He made his way to the back door and left without either of the men seeing him. Then he squeezed into the narrow passage between the tavern and the house next door, made his way past the piles of empty barrels, skirted the terrace with its outdoor drinkers, and walked up to the front door.

"I believe you're looking for me?" he said.

The cloaked man whirled round, mail glinting at the join of his cloak. His hand went to his sword, and for a brief but dreadful moment, Mínir feared that he had been wrong. These men were enemies. Or they were guards, yes, but they weren't looking for him, but for someone dangerous, someone they wanted to kill on sight. But the cloaked man let his hand fall from his sword, and gave a crisp nod. "You are Mínir the Bloodhound?"

"Quiet!" Mínir urged him. "We don't want everyone to know. That is, after all, the whole _point_."

They waited outside until the second cloaked man emerged, and then the two men started walking towards the second gate. Mínir guessed that he was supposed to follow. Despite the warmth of the night, they were not the only people outside wearing cloaks and hoods. It seemed that Minas Tirith was a place of secrets tonight, full of people scurrying around in desperate stealth. Either that, Mínir thought, or a lot of people felt the cold.

He suppressed the urge to laugh. It was lack of the sleep, of course. Lack of sleep, and a pint and a half of strong ale, taken after a day with no food. Lack of sleep, and the dreams that came when he did manage to sleep a little: dreams in which he was stuck outside a locked door, as a man on the other side was killing the king.

His escort led him through the second gate, and then the third. The fourth followed, and the fifth. There they handed him over to a pair of shining fellows who made no attempt to hide what they were: a pair of upstanding officers of the city watch. The sixth gate, like all the others, stood open, no attempt to bar it against honest travellers, although guards with lanterns stood in the opening, peering closely at the faces of everyone who passed. If war did indeed break out, Mínir wondered, would all the gates be closed and barred?

The sixth level was quiet, without the buzz of conversation that filled the other levels. Before today, Mínir had been here only three times, twice openly, and once in secret. For a moment, he wondered if they were going to lead him to the Citadel itself. _That_ gate, at least, was closed. But instead they led him to the Houses of Healing, and into a small empty room. There were no beds in it, only chairs. A place for anxious relatives to wait, perhaps, or maybe a guard room?

They left him there. A few minutes later, the king entered, with Lord Faramir beside him. Mínir went down on his knees, and as the king bade him to rise again, he heard the Steward issuing quiet orders to someone outside in the hallway. That person closed the door, and Mínir was alone with the two most important men in the whole of Gondor.

 _Me!_ he thought. _Me! I'm here! This is real!_ But this was not the time for such thoughts. He had a job to do. This was only the third time he had reported directly to the king. Normally he sent his reports in through his contacts in the city watch, and answers and orders came down the same way.

"The people of Minas Tirith talk of war," the king said.

"It is all they talk about, sire." Mínir's mouth was dry. He swallowed; moistened his lips. "Oh, no, it's not all. Young men still talk about girls. Housewives still haggle over prices and gossip about their neighbours. Life goes on. It's not like the darkest days of the siege, when…"

"When life went on," the king said, "even at the worst of times. Even then there were moments of laughter, and moments of great fellowship. Men still broke bread with each other and found time to sleep…"

"And some there were who found love," said the Steward with a smile, "even as all hope appeared to fail." He sat down on a hard-backed chair, and leant forward, his smile fading. "Within hours of the attempt, everyone in the city knew that the assassin came from the east. They knew of the tokens he was wearing. You were asked to discover the source of that tale."

"And I've tried, my lord," Mínir said. "As is the way of these things, few people can remember where they first heard it. But I've traced it as well as I can. It appears to have started in three different places, almost at the same time. The two on the second level, I've tracked down to no more than a general area, but the one on the first level seems to have started in a tavern called _The Sword and Stars._ I was there tonight when your men pulled me out. I haven't yet tracked it to a single source."

"Try," said the king, with a quick glance at Mínir and a longer one at Lord Faramir. "It is of the utmost importance."

 _Why?_ Mínir would have asked, had this been anyone else but the king. Surely there were more important things? Did the assassin have allies? Had there indeed been another man in the weaver's lodging: a man who had jumped from the window just moments before Mínir reached his hiding place?

"Yes," said the king, although Mínir hadn't spoken. "Such things are important, too, and you are not the only one searching." He exchanged another look with Lord Faramir. "If you find anything, anything at all that you consider important, then come to the sixth gate and ask for Captain Celagon, who commands the city watch. Report it to him alone, and if he judges it necessary, he will send for Lord Faramir, and you will report directly to him."

"To him, my lord?" Mínir blurted out. _Not to you? Are you leaving the city? Is it war, then?_ He had the sense to stop himself from saying that, at least.

"To the Lord Steward of Gondor," said the king, who must surely have known what Mínir had been about to say. "If you are challenged, show this token." He held out a small metal token, a black coin marked with the white tree of Gondor. Mínir took it, his fingertips brushing those of his king. "And there is another matter," said the king. "An exhausted traveller came through Ithilien yesterday, and fell from his horse within sight of Osgiliath. Do they talk in the taverns of that?"

"They've heard about it," Mínir replied. "Lord Faramir was there, and the two _periain_." He turned to the Steward. "You came out with the gate guards who came to carry him in. They wondered if it was bad news from Emyn Arnen, but since you didn't rush out there, they decided it was just a chance traveller who had ridden too far beneath the hot sun. It's already forgotten."

The king and his steward looked at each other again, and some communication was clearly passing between them. Mínir looked discreetly down at his feet, fighting long habit. In his job, if silent communication was taking place, he made it his business to watch it avidly to glean all the secrets that he could.

But even though he didn't watch them, his mind was racing. The king had given him many answers tonight, both in the things he had chosen to ask him, and in the things he hadn't said. The king must have known it, of course. _He trusts me,_ Mínir thought. _He trusts me that much._ And it was good that he wasn't being called upon to answer, because for a moment, he didn't think he could trust his voice.

They turned back to him soon enough, and by then, he was composed again. They asked more questions: every detail of the things he had seen and heard in the weaver's lodgings, and any stray hint that he had heard about afterwards. "Sire!" Mínir vowed, when the questions fell once more to silence. "I won't rest until-"

"Rest," said the king gently. "Things are not yet so dark that you should rob yourself of sleep."

And then it seemed that the interview was over. Lord Faramir stood up and went towards the door. Mínir chewed his lip, and wondered whether to say it. "Sire." And there he was, saying it, after all. "The weaver," he said. "What happened to him. Is he…?"

"Dead?" said the king. "Imprisoned?" He shook his head. "He is under close guard, that is true, but he is here, in the Houses of Healing. His wound took a turn for the worse, as sometimes happens with injuries to the head. He is still insensible, and he came close to dying, but the healers now hope that he will live."

To be questioned, no doubt. "I don't…" Mínir said. "My lord, I only spoke to him that once, but I don't think he was involved. I think the assassin was in his loft without his knowledge. I believe he is guilty of nothing more than…"

"Weakness," said Lord Faramir. "Inattention."

"Yes," Mínir agreed, because he had already said too much, so there was no point in stopping now. "And that weakness could have killed his king. He will have to live with that. What punishment could be greater?"

Lord Faramir opened his mouth to speak, but the king spoke first. "He is insensible, but the mind is never truly asleep. I have seen some of the secrets that he keeps, and I saw what drives him. For my part, I am inclined to believe that you are right, Mínir. But he must remain guarded."

"Can I visit him?" Mínir tried to soften the abruptness of the question. "Sire, could I-?"

"The doors of the Houses of Healing are always open," said the king. "Show your token, and you will be taken to the room that houses him. But he still sleeps now. He will sleep for several days yet."

And then the interview was over, no farewells, no proper ending. After they had left him, Mínir sank into a chair, and stayed there for a very long time. He had no escort to show him the way back down, and he walked it all alone.

* * *

"And this is how it has to be?" Faramir said, just before they parted for the night.

Aragorn nodded. "I ride out with the army, and you stay behind. The Steward rules in the absence of the king or an adult heir. That is how it has always been. And it may be that of the two of us, you will have the harder battle. There are secrets in the city, and quite probably enemies already here within the walls."

"I know that," Faramir said. "I will find them if I can. I will stop them."

The hallway was empty, just the faint sound of footsteps as a servant walked away. The shadow of the Anor Stone lurked between them, branded with the image of Denethor's dying hands. It was one of the few things that they never spoke of, although Faramir must surely know that Aragorn used it.

He placed a hand on Faramir's arm. "I know you will."

There was a moment of silence. Faramir broke it first. "When do you ride?"

"As soon as we can muster," Aragorn said. "The messengers went out this afternoon, although it is not yet common knowledge in the city. We have some secrets still."

"It will be known by the morning," said Faramir.

"Yes," Aragorn agreed, "and three days after that, I hope, we ride."

"To war," Faramir said quietly, as the light of torches danced upon his face.

"Yes," said Aragorn. "Perhaps."

* * *

end of chapter five

* * *

Note: I have used a little dramatic licence with the palantír. Tolkien tells us that Aragorn planned to use the Orthanc Stone, which he intended to set up in Orthanc. All he says about the Anor Stone is that only people with great strength of will could see anything in it but Denethor's burning hands. Given that we are told again and again that Aragorn has great strength of will, I reasoned that he is probably strong enough to fight past this and use the Anor Stone for its proper purpose. The stones work best when there's more than one of them in use, and the set-up I've gone with at least allows both surviving stones to be used. It makes sense to me, although it's not supported by canon.


	6. The Muster of Gondor

**Chapter six: The Muster of Gondor**

From _After the War: The Wars of the First Century,_ by Beregond Falconer, F.A. 1327

The early decades of the first century were a time of transition for the soldiery of Gondor. Many different companies fought in the War of the Ring, under many different captains. The Rangers in Ithilien swore their loyalty to Faramir, their captain. The Citadel Guards remained in the Citadel, and if they went out, they did so only as bodyguards to the Steward, Gondor's ruling lord. In the city, the City Guard, sometimes known as the Watch, guarded the gates and kept order in the streets. Each gate had its own captain, and few ever left the city, because the city itself was their charge.

When warriors were needed to fight in Osgiliath or further afield, they were for the most part levies who served under their own lords. In the Thain's book, we read how Thain Peregrin watched Forlong of Lossarnach march in with all his men. Others lords came with forces of their own, and last came Imrahil of Dol Amroth, with his knights and seven hundred men-at-arms. In battle, they fought beneath their own lords' banners, and wore not the livery of Gondor, but the livery of their lords.

As Captain-General until his departure for Imladris, Boromir son of Denethor had authority over all the captains of Gondor. The captains and the lords deferred to his wishes, and followed him because he was his father's son, and because he led them well. When he rode to war, he took the men most suited for the job, whether they were warriors from his own household, or from the household of other lords; whether they were promising captains from the walls of Minas Tirith, or Rangers from Ithilien. But although they loved Boromir, the humble man-at-arms would have considered himself a follower of his own lord or his own captain. A knight from Dol Amroth was a knight of Dol Amroth whose lord fought for Gondor.

By the end of Elessar's reign, all this had changed. When the armies of Gondor rode forth, they all wore the king's own livery. In peace time, many still owed allegiance to other lords, but in war, they fought for Gondor, and considered themselves soldiers of the king. At the core, there was a standing army, permanently based in garrisons across the realm.

The change had begun even before the crowning of King Elessar. When he rode forth to the Black Gate, all who marched with him knew that they were fighting for the future of Gondor, for the future of Middle Earth itself. Whatever livery they wore, they were bound together by the same cause. This belief endured, even when peace came and they want back to their lords' lands and settled back into their old lives.

Twelve years into the Fourth Age, then, the armies of Gondor were changing, but they had not yet changed completely. It took time to muster a large fighting force. The king sent his command to his great lords, and the great lords commanded their lesser lords, and the lesser lords turned to their knights and commanded each one to raise their allotted number of men-at-arms. It took time, and Elessar did not have time, for the armies of the east were fast approaching.

When he rode out, he did so with barely five thousand men, gathered in haste. Few wore the livery of Gondor.

* * *

All night long, Haeweth had been kept awake by warlike noises. The city's main armoury was on the fifth level, and although her master's house was on the sixth, its windows overlooked the armoury below. All through the night, she'd heard the clattering of weapons and armour being loaded onto waggons. Lights had blazed in the courtyards, and silly boys had sparred with their new weapons well into the night.

It was altogether too much! She laboured from morning to night, and after a hard day's work, didn't she deserve a good night's sleep? Her attic room was hot, and she liked to sleep with the window open in the summer, but how could she do that when the soldiers insisted on clattering so?

She didn't hold with it, oh no, not one little bit. Couldn't they keep their clanking to daylight hours? It reminded her too much of the siege. Not that she'd been in the city during that horrible business, because she'd gone with her mistress and her babes to Lossarnach, but she'd seen the levies coming through, and had often woken up in terror, convinced she could hear hordes of murdering orcs coming to kill them all in their beds.

Selfish, that's what it was, to make such loud noises and worry an honest woman so! Not that she disapproved of the war itself, of course, not she! Those savage Easterlings had tried to murder their king! She couldn't stand for such behaviour. She'd seen him once, standing as close to him as she stood now to yonder garden gate. He'd looked right at her. Of course, the silly old biddy standing next to her swore blind that he'd been looking at _her_ , but what did she know?

A trumpet sounded, and some rash young fool was riding a horse somewhere, its hooves clattering on stone. A trumpet so early in the morning! What were they thinking? It was the only hour she had to herself, before her duties started. Down the servants' stair she usually went, along the street, and into the small public garden that the king's elf friends had planted for them all to enjoy, yes, even servants like her! It was normally quiet, nothing but the sound of bird song and the babble of the fountain.

It was quiet today, too. She passed through the gates, and was immediately embraced by the scent of morning flowers. She could still hear the horse's hooves, but the clanking from the armoury faded almost to nothing. She drew in a deep breath, inhaling the scent of roses.

Perhaps she shouldn't begrudge them their clanking, she decided. She was glad that the king was going to war. For a few days, she'd worried that he wasn't going to do anything about the attempt on his life, and _that_ just wouldn't do! But he was riding out, and he'd defeat his enemies, and then he'd come riding back. It would all be over by the end of the summer, and that was good. That was very good.

She would sit by the fountain for a while, she decided, and then head back, ready to don her apron and start cleaning. She meandered through the footpaths, sometimes reaching out to let the leaves trail across her chapped old hands.

Then she reached the fountain, stopped quite suddenly for a moment, and then she started screaming.

* * *

Éomer chuckled to himself at the foolish vanity of the horse lords of the Riddermark. "Do they think we know nothing of horses?" he had overheard a stable hand mutter to his fellow. "You mark my words: before this morning's out, every single one of them, _every single one_ , will come and take their horses out for a ride, to make sure they're ready when they depart this afternoon. As if we couldn't do that perfectly well ourselves!"

Éomer had not been supposed to hear that, of course. Fortunately, the two riders of his escort had missed it, because they would have seen it as an insult, an attack on their king's honour. Suppressing a smile, Éomer had busied himself with readying Beortrod, and then had sprung into the saddle, and ridden out into the cool of the morning.

Beortrod was ready, of course, eager and swift. Éomer circled the sixth level as far as he could, then turned and headed back. He almost returned to the stables then, but it was good to be in the saddle, feeling the wind in his hair. There were gardens nearby, and the breeze brought him the soft scent of outdoors. He passed an open garden gate, and rode as far as the spur of the mountain. He wheeled round quickly. _Showing off,_ he thought, _and why not?_

The screaming started as he passed the open garden gate.

His escort checked their horses, swords in hand. Éomer was faster. Reining up, he was out of the saddle even before Beortrod had come to a halt. The old woman in the garden gate was no threat, surely. "Peace," he urged her, as she screamed and wailed. He kept his distance, though, just in case, hating the fact that the times he had lived through had taught him such caution. "Peace!" he commanded.

"Dead!" the woman wailed. "There's a dead man in there, bleeding in the fountain!"

Éomer heard the sound of voices coming up behind him: citizens of Minas Tirith drawn by the screaming. From the other direction, a pair of guards were running towards him from the gate. Panic in the street was a dangerous enemy, Aragorn had warned him. Everywhere they spoke of war and vengeance. Secrets had spread that should never have been told.

"Hush," he urged, and he approached her. Ignoring the protests of his escort, he grasped her by the upper arms. "Hush," he said, and, "show me what has scared you."

She would not come, so he entrusted her to the care of one of his riders, and commanded him to keep the growing crowd from entering. The other rider came with him, and the two of them entered the garden together. They walked slowly, cautiously, alert for enemies in the cover of the greenery, but all was silent.

The dead man wore the uniform of the city guard. He lay on the lip of the fountain, half in the water, and half out. He lay face down, and the water of the pool was stained dark pink with his blood. Éomer touched him gently, but he was clearly dead, his face submerged and his pale dead hand floating on the surface of the water. His other hand was outstretched on the stone surround of the pool, and something gleamed beneath it.

It was not a knife, although that was his first thought. Éomer gently moved that hand to one side, to see what it was that the dead man had been holding as he died.

It was a gold bead, covered all over with intricate carvings.

* * *

He was not supposed to be here. That was the opinion of his seneschal, at least. The king of Gondor, it seemed, should not concern himself with a murder. A murder in the Citadel might just be deemed worthy of his attention, but a murder below those airy heights…? It was a distraction. He was riding out to war, and he had papers to sign and orders to give, and what would people _think_? "You have guards for this, my lord," his seneschal had protested.

"And one of those guards has paid for his service with his life," Aragorn had told him sternly.

The dead guardsman had been left in the fountain where he had been found. Aragorn crouched beside the body, and touched the man's throat and his brow and his hand. There was an ugly wound on his head, and he had suffered two knife thrusts, one in the back and one over the heart, but…

Frowning, Aragorn stood up, and headed along the narrow grassy footpath that meandered through the shrubs. "He was not killed here," he murmured, but he was already shaking his head. "No, he died here, but he was attacked somewhere else. Did the head injury come first, or the knife wound on his back? Either way, he was unconscious and bleeding, and they carried him here." He pointed to the smears of blood on the leaves. Earlier, there might have been footprints visible in the dew, but they had melted away with the sun. "There is less blood than I would have expected. Perhaps they tried to wad the wound with a cloak…"

"Or he bled into the clothes of the man carrying him," said Faramir, his face grim and pale in the morning sunshine.

Aragorn nodded. "And he got his death wound here," Aragorn said, "and his life's blood flowed out into the fountain. But why? They came this far unseen, yet they made no attempt to hide the body. This garden is well used during the day."

"They killed in stealth," Faramir said, "but they wanted their victim found."

Éomer looked sickened. His people were no strangers to death in battle, but death in the shadows would forever be alien to them. But Aragorn and Faramir were Rangers, accustomed to hiding. They had resorted to stealth out of necessity and to protect those who needed protecting, but when the need had been dire, they had both killed quietly, and at night.

"Who was he?" Aragorn turned to Captain Celagon, suddenly ashamed that he had not asked this question first. The other questions mattered, but this was a murdered man, somebody's brother or husband or son.

"His name was Hastor, my lord," said Celagon. "He was stationed at the sixth gate, under Captain Othoner. He was a good soldier, serious and conscientious. He was on the midnight watch, along with another, but nothing seemed amiss when the two lads of the next watch came to relieve them. He said he wanted to stretch his legs for a few minutes before heading back to the guard house. It was a noisy night last night, because of the mustering, my lord. Lots of comings and goings, and normal routine all thrown out. The lads would have missed him, else."

Faramir drew close to Aragorn. Unthinkingly, he plucked a blood-stained leaf, then seemed to notice what he had done, and let it fall. "It might not be anything to do with…" He let it trail. "He was a young man, and a handsome one. It could be a crime of passion: a tavern argument or a rivalry over a girl."

"Begging your pardon, my lord, but he wasn't one for that sort of thing," Celagon said. "He was quiet, not one for drinking. He had no sweetheart and spent his time in the practice yard or with his books."

"Thank you, Captain." Aragorn took a step back from the fountain. "Your men can remove him now. Send Othoner to report to us later."

Outside the garden there was silence. The guards were keeping the people away, but he imagined that many of them were watching from their windows. They would see Aragorn, Faramir and Éomer leaving together, and they would talk, and within hours the talk would spread. But talk had been inevitable. The old servant lady had taken care of that with her screams.

"The bead," Éomer said quietly, as they paused for a moment by the garden gate. "Does it belong to our friends in the east?"

"Yes." Aragorn nodded. "They wear them in their hair." He clutched it tighter in his fist, feeling the intricate carvings against his palm. "A bead this fine would only be worn by a renowned warrior. It is a badge of his status. He would not willingly part with it in life."

"Yet I see no dead Easterling," said Éomer.

Aragorn shook his head. "No," he agreed.

* * *

"I feel quite useless," Pippin confessed, in the pleasant sitting room that he and Merry shared. "What can we do? Go with them?" Nobody had asked them to. He was a knight of Gondor, but he was no fool, or so he hoped. He and Merry had won the Battle of Bywater, but there was little they could do to turn the tide of a battle between men.

"Perhaps," Merry said, "there is something…"

There was a knock at the door, and once again, they stopped their talking and turned to greet their visitors. The undaunted cheerfulness of hobbits was like a balm to a troubled mind. Who had said that? Gandalf, perhaps, or Aragorn? He couldn't remember, but he remembered the words. Perhaps this, if nothing else, would be their role in this. Faramir and Éowyn were also staying behind, although he doubted that either of them wanted to.

Legolas and Gimli entered, followed by servants carrying steaming plates. "Second breakfast," Gimli declared. "Aragorn ordered it for you himself, but he has been detained, and Éomer with him."

Pippin clapped his hands together in delight that was not entirely feigned. "See?" he said to Merry. "I told you he'd teach them about second breakfast in the end."

They settled down to eat it, spreading it out upon the floor, as they had eaten so many scant meals during the journey of the Fellowship. It was good fare: bacon and sausages and eggs cooked _just_ so, not enough to dry out, but not so little that their whites stayed horrible and runny. They spoke little as they ate, and when they did so, they spoke about memories. "Do you remember…?" and, "This reminds me of…"

It felt too much like a farewell.

"When do you ride?" Pippin asked, when the last of the breakfast had been finished, and there was nothing left to mop up with the final scraps of bread.

"Aragorn rides out this evening," Legolas said. "The army is mustering on the far side of Osgiliath, across the Anduin. Most will be arriving today, some of them coming by river. I intend to ride out this afternoon, to bring a small force of my kinsfolk from Ithilien to meet Aragorn's host on the road."

"There are no dwarves close enough to heed my call," said Gimli, "so I ride with Aragorn alone, along with Éomer and his thirty men. We will join the muster tonight, ready to depart at dawn tomorrow."

"So there will be no ceremonial leaving," Merry said, "if the army's gathering across the river."

"That is how he wishes it," said Legolas.

"But the men of Gondor are well aware of the departure," Gimli said. "It is hard for them to forgive these Easterlings for the attempt on Aragorn's life. They are glad that he is taking arms against them."

"Which is stupid," Pippin said hotly, "because by sending him to war, they might be sending him to his death."

"They are not sending him to war, Pippin," said Gimli, "for he has chosen this course himself," but Pippin turned away from him, blinking fiercely. It seemed that everybody knew more about this business than he and Merry did.

* * *

The hours raced on apace. The sun rose to its highest point, and began to sink down towards the western horizon. He had no time, and soon, always too soon, there came the time to say farewell to Arwen.

There was no time for a long leavetaking. They could not retire to a private chamber to hold each other and speak long words of farewell. After so many years apart, they never tired of each other, and never ran out of things to say. But for the most important things, they needed few words.

"It is right," Arwen said, when the messenger for Dol Amroth had left.

Other messengers stood waiting, alongside lords and officials wanting their final commands. Aragorn raised his hand, ordering them to wait, and led Arwen away from them, into the courtyard. From there, they walked into the Queen's Garden, where every plant had been chosen by Arwen herself. They had first met beneath the trees, and they had plighted their troth on Cerin Amroth. It was only right to say their farewell here, surrounded by the scent of flowers.

"It is right," Arwen said again, "this course that you have chosen."

"Yes," Aragorn said, then gave a wry smile. "Or so I hope."

The trees cast long shadows, and some of the flowers were already beginning to close their petals for the night. But where the sun still shone, the light was glorious, and bees still flocked around the open flowers. Birds swooped low from the branches, surrounding them with liquid song. They were never afraid of Arwen, and when he was with her, hand in hand, they had no fear of him.

"If I have chosen wrongly…" Aragorn said. "If I have misjudged this, then…"

"The kingdom will not fall," Arwen said.

"No," Aragorn agreed, "but it will be weakened. Many will die, and it may be that this hope of ours, this dream of a golden age, will come to nothing. In time, the Reunified Kingdom will seem no more than a petty princedom that flourished for a while, and then faded away."

"It will not," Arwen assured him. A butterfly rested briefly on her sleeve. Smiling, she watched it as it flew away, but then turned grave again. "You will return safely," she said, turning so that she was in his arms, her face just inches from his own. "Ere too many weeks have passed, you will return."

A lord of Gondor, more forward than the others, appeared at the entrance to the garden. Aragorn waved him away.

Let them have this moment together. It was only a few snatched minutes, but let them have it alone.

* * *

For a moment, Pippin thought he was seeing Strider the Ranger again, preparing to head out into the wilds. "It's the grey cloak," he murmured. "He's wearing his old grey cloak again." But even as he said it, he knew that this was not the only reason why he had been reminded so strongly of the past.

 _It's because I'm not a knight of Gondor, watching my king ride away to war. I'm Peregrin Took, watching my friend Strider heading off into all manner of dangers, and there's nothing I can do._

There was no fancy escort, and no kingly panoply. Éomer was already down at the stable, and Pippin and Merry had already said farewell to him. Legolas had departed in the afternoon. Gimli came hurrying out, catching Aragorn up, and they exchanged a few words, and laughed. Pippin couldn't hear what they were saying, though. He couldn't think why they would be laughing at a time like this. It was the hobbit way, to say light-hearted things at serious moments, but Pippin couldn't think of anything light-hearted to say.

He found himself hurrying forward. "I want to go with you," he said. "You've got so _few_. Legolas told us earlier. Only five thousand! Oh, it seems a lot to us hobbits, because an army of five thousand would squash us completely, but you had more than that when you rode out to the Black Gate, and I know you were worried you didn't have enough. I want…"

His words ran out. The courtyard seemed dreadfully silent. As always, the Citadel guards surrounded the white tree, and they were utterly impassive. And Pippin was one of them, although Aragorn had never made him take up his duties, and here he was, babbling away! Merry hadn't even come forward to join him. He must… But, no, here was Merry now, striding up stoutly behind him. Good old Merry, always backing him up, no matter how silly he was being.

"No more could be gathered in haste," Aragorn said, "and above all, haste is needed." He went down on one knee, and placed one hand on Pippin's shoulder and the other on Merry's. "I have enough for my needs, I hope. Don't worry about that." And he even _sounded_ like Strider again, and that just made it worse.

"We probably can't do anything useful," Pippin said. "I know that. We'd just be two out of five thousand, and the two smallest, at that. But…"

"You are still my guests," Aragorn said. "It's quite shocking behaviour for a host to up and leave, I know that, but Arwen is still here, and Faramir acts in my stead. We would not ask our guests to fight, but I am leaving Faramir with something of a poisoned chalice, I fear. It may be that those left behind will have battles of their own to fight: battles of a different kind."

"And can we help with those battles?" Pippin asked. "Can we?"

"It may be," Strider said gently, and he pulled them into an embrace, first Merry with one arm, and then Pippin with the other.

And then he stood up, and then he walked away, his grey cloak fading into the twilight until he wasn't there at all.

For a very long time, nobody spoke. Daylight faded. Far below them, the cluster of horsemen passed out of sight, swallowed up by the approaching dark.

* * *

"So that's that, then," said Merry. "They've gone."

Éowyn knew that she should speak some words of comfort to the hobbits. Instead, she reached for Faramir's hand, and held it tight. Throughout her life, she had stood in halls and palaces, and watched men ride away. If anything, Aragorn had seemed more sensitive to her feelings than Éomer had been. The king had found a moment for a quiet word, and had told her that Faramir would need her in the weeks to come. This, _this,_ was what she needed to hear. Éomer had just embraced her and jumped into the saddle, a joyous warrior riding proudly to war, leaving his womenfolk behind.

"Come on, Pippin," Merry said, at last. "I'm sure that supper's waiting."

He saw much, did Sir Holdwine. Éowyn smiled at him, as the wind blew the hair across her face. As she pushed it back with her spare hand, the hobbits left the battlements. Merry led the way. Pippin walked more slowly, and often looked back.

Éowyn wondered where the queen was. Watching from some high tower, perhaps. Or maybe she needed no window to watch over the king. She was an elf, the daughter of Elrond, and although she and Éowyn had become friends, there were differences between them that Éowyn could never forget.

"Faramir," Éowyn said, when the distant door had opened, and the hobbits had vanished inside. "Would you have me return to Emyn Arnen?"

Faramir stiffened. "Do you want to?"

"No!" It came out fiercely, and thickened with unshed tears. "Not while you're here, wrestling with all this. But it's our home, and I am with child. Certain ladies have been telling me…"

She broke off, finally seeing the yearning misery on Faramir's face. Faramir wanted to be riding out with his king. He stayed because of duty. When the king was away, the Steward ruled, and Faramir accepted the need for that, no matter what his heart said. Although Faramir was a gifted captain and a skilled warrior, he disliked war. Of the two of them, it was Éowyn, not Faramir, who had spent her younger days yearning for battle. There had been reasons for her longing, of course, and some of those reasons had passed, but…

 _No,_ she thought. Enough of her own fears. _Faramir will have need of you,_ the king had said. Faramir disliked war, but when war came to Gondor, he wanted to be part of it. He wanted to ride out with his king, the captain of his heart. And yet he could not.

"I am here," she said. "I am here with you."

"Stay," Faramir said, his voice thick. "Don't go to Emyn Arnen until…" He pulled her close.

"Stay," he said, and she said, "I will."

* * *

He had no lord, and the captain he had served under for the last two years was dead, killed by raiders from the east. Faramir was the captain who still held his deepest loyalty, but Faramir was Steward of Gondor, and was not going to war.

"I want to go with them," Mablung had said to the healers who were tending him in Osgiliath. They had shaken their heads and tutted, saying things about his wounds still needing a few days yet, and here, have a drink, and what about a nice strengthening bite to eat?

"I want to go with them," he had said to the door warden of the healing halls. That was after he had risen from his bed and dressed himself without the healers' leave. He had paused in the doorway, though, his legs protesting the sudden burst of movement.

" _I_ don't," the door warden had said gruffly. He was an old soldier, heavily scarred. "I got this at the Black Gate," he had said, pointing to the worst scar, which twisted his mouth upwards into his cheek. "It's a quiet life for me now. I've earned it. From what I hear, you have, too."

"I want to go with you," he said now, but he had no lord and he had no captain. Everyone served under someone else; that was the way of things. The lords had their levies of knights, and the knights brought spearmen from their households and foot soldiers from their fields. Three companies of volunteers came from the city itself - citizens burning with righteous fury - but even they had been assigned to captains.

"I was a Ranger of Ithilien," he said, but Ithilien was at peace now, no longer a frontier between Gondor and Mordor. "I was there!" he shouted, and then he almost wept, because he knew that he wasn't recovered after all, or he wouldn't be carrying on so.

"Where?" asked a captain from Lossarnach, pausing briefly in his work.

But he couldn't say. Captain Faramir had commanded him to keep his tidings quiet. Of course, they were sending an army northwards, so the news was probably out by now, but Mablung had never disobeyed a captain's command. His captain had bound him to silence, so silent he would stay.

"I just want to go with them," he murmured quietly, as he turned away. All around him, men were bustling, busy preparing for the morning departure. Some had already settled down around their campfires for the evening, and songs rang out from every side. "I just…"

"Mablung." A voice spoke his name.

Mablung looked up, and the king was there, riding through the camp with no more ceremony than a minor lord returning from a visit to the city. Mablung fell to his knees. "My lord," he said. "Sire, please let me be assigned to a command. I need to go with you. I can be useful. I was _there_."

"Are you recovered from your wounds?" asked the king. "Things are not so dire that we should drag a wounded man from his sick bed, and you have well earned your rest."

"I'm fully healed, my lord," Mablung declared, but it was a lie, and the king surely knew it. Like Captain Faramir, he knew the secrets of men's hearts. "I'm not," he admitted, "but I will be soon. I can keep up!"

The king looked at him for a long while, then nodded. "March with the levies from Minas Tirith. See how you fare on the first day's march. If you are well enough after the second day, come to me. I may have a task for you."

"Thank you. Thank you, my lord," Mablung gasped, almost weeping with the force of his relief. But the king was riding on by then, and if he saw this sign of Mablung's continuing weakness, he gave no sign.

It was just days before Midsummer, and dawn came early. Aragorn woke even before the sun had cleared the mountains. Emerging from his tent, he stood with his back to the rising sun, and watched instead the daylight spreading across the towers of Osgiliath. All around him, men were stirring. "Get up, you lazy slug-a-bed!" he heard, and, "I need more water!" Cooking fires were lit, and the Riders of Rohan strode out together to tend to their horses.

He had given them two hours from dawn until the time of their leaving. Two hours to eat and to stow the tents in the waggons. Two hours to accustom themselves to the life of a soldier on the march.

In Minas Tirith, the hobbits would be beginning to stir, eager for breakfast. Eldarion would be playing with his cats, or pestering his nurse for honey cakes. Arwen was in the window, looking east; he knew that suddenly, beyond all doubt.

"So it is time," said Éomer, when the first hour had passed, and the second hour was hastening to its end.

Aragorn would ride at the front, with Éomer alongside him. The horsemen would go first, and the bulk of the army would follow on foot. There were scouts and outriders, of course, but it would be days before they needed to fear ambush or enemies. It would be a faster march than their journey to the Black Gate. In a week, perhaps, or maybe ten days…

"Yes," Aragorn said. "It is time."

He gave the command, and the trumpets sounded.

It was time.


	7. Finding Their Voice

**Chapter seven: Finding Their Voice**

From _Finding Their Voice,_ by Oswine Odmundson, F.A. 610

Whose voices speak to us most loudly from the past? Here in the Riddermark, we tell songs and stories, and pass them down from father to son. Warrior to warrior, the stories spread around the camp fire. Scholar to scholar, they spread in quiet halls. Early in the Fourth Age, we began to learn the habit of writing things down, but to us, the voices of the past speak most clearly when they speak aloud.

But do these voices speak the truth? When a man hears a tale and retells it, he changes it subtly, even if he does not mean to. He brings to it his own preoccupations and those of his age. "Harken now to the words of Éomer the Great!" we hear, but did Éomer King ever speak the words that we so boldly attribute to him? Éomer at least wrote some things down, but his forefathers left us barely any written record at all. All we have is the tales. We cherish them and we rightly value them, but how far can we believe them?

And the stories tell only of lords and kings. The common folk of the Riddermark have left us no word: no stories, no writings, no voice. Theirs is but silence.

It was different in Gondor. Gondor, too, had its songs and its stories, but from the start, Gondor prized the written word. Yet even so, until the dawn of the Fourth Age, we hear little from the common folk. The lords had their libraries, but many common farmers could not read. We have letters from stewards and letters from lords, but the people of Gondor who lived through the War of the Ring left us but scant account of their thoughts.

All that changed in the early years of the Fourth Age. There was a flowering of literacy. All across Gondor, people found their voice. The roads were repaired, and a postal service was established, and men and women, however humble, could send letters to their distant kin.

And send letters they did. The men who marched with Elessar to the Black Gate have left us but little. Just fourteen years later, the men who marched with him against the Easterlings sent letters to loved ones at home. Some kept diaries. Others hoarded the written word, and kept orders and lists, and we can still see them centuries later. And as they marched from Osgiliath through Ithilien, the men and women who watched them pass wrote letters and diaries about what they had seen.

"My worries were groundless," wrote one farmer's wife to her sister in Lossarnach. "They didn't trample anything to ruin. They took only what we wanted to give them, and they paid for what they took. They were very polite. I gave them an extra cartload of potatoes for free. Well, harvests have been something wonderful these last few years, and it's a good cause, after all. And no, I didn't see the king."

"My feet hurt," wrote a man-at-arms. "We did twenty miles today, just going as far as the crossroads. They say we're aiming for twenty-five tomorrow. I hope I get a better night's sleep than last night. I wonder if you'll get this. Captain says that messengers are going back to Minas Tirith daily, and there might be room for them to take messages from us lowly fellows, although not too many, and not at all once. So maybe I won't send this, so as not to waste my turn. I'll save it for when I've got something important to say, not just I love you. I love you."

"I remember watching the army go by," wrote an old woman many decades later. "I was five. My brother was older than me, but he was afraid. I wasn't. I climbed an apple tree and watched them go past: the horsemen first, then the men-at-arms and then the waggons. Some of them passed really close to me, but only one of them saw me. He was quite young, or so I realise now, and he pulled a funny face and gave a little wave. I think he got told off for that."

Trampled crops, sore feet and a child hiding in an apple tree. Those are the voices that have come down to us. They are as much a part of war as the stories of captains and kings.

* * *

For twelve years, he had gone by the name of Seregon. It was not his true name, of course. For twelve years, he had kept his head down. He had built a life for himself in this city of his enemies. It was a false life, of course. It meant nothing.

He had friends. He would kill them in an instant. He had taken lovers, but never kept them. He had broken bread with comrades who thought that they knew him. They did not.

And he had gone down on one knee. He had bowed before the lords of Gondor, and he had swallowed his pride and spoken hollow, empty oaths. With all the other hateful fools, he had pretended to be overjoyed when he as much as glimpsed their king from a distance. It was good to be in Minas Tirith in this new age of the world; that was what they all agreed. The man who was not called Seregon nodded along with them. And sometimes… Sometimes…

Sometimes it almost felt…

He clenched his fist; smashed it into the opposite palm. He could not waver, now he was so close to the end. Twelve years of waiting. Twelve years of creating this man called Seregon, and embedding him into the life of the hideous city of the kings from beyond the sea. For years he had worked here alone. Others would come, he had been told, but for years, they had not.

But they were here now. They were here, and they had taken command. They distrusted him a little, he thought, because of the new oaths he had sworn, but those oaths meant nothing. He had told them that hotly, fiercely, and there and then, had sworn again the old oaths he had made upon first becoming a man. They had accepted those oaths in the end, and so he was no longer alone, and the time for the end game had come.

In truth, he had played but little part in the opening moves of the war. To him had fallen the most recent move, but it had not been an intentional one, or not entirely. He had intended to kill someone, but he had not intended it to be that fellow Hastor. Curse the man's keen eyes! Curse his conscientious nature, which had caused him to poke his nose in when he should have walked away! Seregon had killed him to silence him, but had made his death serve the wider goal. The bead was a nice touch, if he did say so himself. Shame that he had lost his cloak, but it had been too soaked in blood to be salvaged. He had endured a few anxious hours before it was safely burnt.

What commands would they have for him next? It was strange to have true masters to command him, after all those years of living alone amongst his enemies. What was the next stage of this war? The bait had been taken, and the king of Gondor had ridden away, chasing shadows in the east. In his absence, Gondor was weakened. The Steward remained, of course, and he was a formidable man in his own right, but he was also a mortal man. The Steward could not command an army of the dead to obey his every command.

Seregon did not fear him, and _soon_ , he thought, smiling. _Soon…_

* * *

In the bright afternoon sunshine, the beautiful towers of Minas Tirith looked garish and brash. Its people were ugly, and kept getting in his way. It was too hot. Instead of attracting him, the smells from the market stalls and taverns made Mínir want to recoil. When people spoke to him, it was all he could do not to shout at them and send them on their way.

 _I'm in a black mood today, it seems,_ he thought, as he trudged through the airless streets.

It was too many days without answers. It was too many nights spent searching, always searching for those answers that never came. He'd narrowed the source of the rumours down, but then he'd hit a solid wall. Nobody knew, and no amount of asking could make people remember something that they'd never known in the first place. He still had no idea who had killed the assassin, and no idea who had shouted the warning. With the matter of the striking bell, at least he had some answer, but it was not a useful one. The bell had rung in an abandoned tower. The door had been locked, but somebody had broken in. As to who he was… Well, that was anyone's guess.

And then had come another crime, and another source of rumours racing through the streets. The Easterlings were amongst them! They'd slaughtered an honest, upstanding young fellow from the Watch! At least the king had gone to war against them! _That_ would quickly put an end to their mischief once and for all.

At least, that had been the consensus of the night before. This morning, they had woken to a different world: a world in which their king was no longer with them. Although few had marched from the city itself, most people knew someone who had marched away. Wives had awakened to an empty bed. There were empty places at breakfast tables and around the tavern tables where the same friends gathered, day in and day out.

 _You wanted this!_ Mínir wanted to scream at them. _You were the ones who were so quick to clamour for war!_

But, silent, he trudged on. It was only when he reached the fourth gate that he wavered. He was in a dark mood, and yet he was planning to visit a man who had been caught up in a situation far darker. He hadn't had time before now to seek out the weaver, but he hadn't forgotten him. The king had told him he could do this. It was right, he thought. It was right.

He let out a long breath. He pressed his hands to his face, then scraped them downwards, as if he was gouging away thick layers of dirt. He sighed again, and set out walking more briskly, through the fourth gate and the fifth, and up to the sixth level. He didn't show his token at the gate, because he had no urgent news to report. They watched him closely as he passed, though; more closely than they did at the other gates. Of course, he realised, these were the fellows who had lost a comrade the day before. It was only natural that they would stare at strangers so.

Once through the gate, he headed for the Houses of Healing. He used his token here, saying that he had permission to visit the… prisoner? Patient? He didn't know what the weaver was. It seemed that nobody else knew, either. "Be gentle," said the healer, "for he is still weak," but the guard said gruffly, "Be careful," and, "I'll be at the door, watching you."

It didn't look like a prison cell, at any rate. There were bars on the window, true, but someone had put a vase of flowers on the table by the bed. The bed looked comfortable enough, but the walls were whitewashed stone and the floor was wood, only one thin rug to soften the sound of Mínir's footsteps. He wondered how many other injured prisoners had been tended here while under guard. More than once, his own work had led to a murderer being captured, sometimes after a bitter fight, although not with him, because he was no fighter. It had never occurred to him to wonder what they about the criminal's wounds after they dragged him away.

The weaver lay with his back to the door, and didn't react when Mínir approached the bed. Mínir looked for a stool, and found one, carrying it to the far side of the bed. The weaver's eyes were open, staring at the wall. _The weaver?_ Mínir thought. He didn't even know the man's name, and yet here he was.

Here he was, and _why_? He had no idea how to begin. He had no idea what to say. And the weaver just lay there and stared, the first casualty of this war. But when the histories were written, would any of them include his name? If he was guilty, he would be reviled, but if he was innocent, he would be forgotten. 'The assassin took refuge in a weaver's loft,' they would say in the histories, and they would leave it at that.

* * *

The business of the kingdom continued as normal. Breakfast and lunch were particularly fine, and the gardeners were busy pruning, or whatever it was that gardeners got up to in the summer. _Sam would know,_ Pippin thought, but Sam was too busy being mayor to come with them to Minas Tirith. Lithe began in three days, and there were important decisions to be made about the festivities.

There were important decisions to be made in Minas Tirith, too. This was the day when the people of Gondor could bring their appeals before the king, and throughout the afternoon, there was a steady stream of them. Aragorn wasn't there, of course, but Faramir had the authority to make rulings on his behalf. For hours he had sat in that black stone chair at the foot of the stairs, listening to petitioners, asking questions, making judgements.

Pippin had entered the throne room not long after lunch. The guards there hadn't stopped him, merely opening the doors as he approached, and letting him wander right in. Pippin had expected everyone to turn and stare at him, but nobody had. Although they were such enormous things, the doors made no sound, and Pippin's feet were silent on the stone floor.

The guards stopped everyone else, though, questioning them closely before letting them in. Pippin wandered outside during a break in the proceedings, and saw that they were stopping them at the entrance to the Citadel, too. Of course they were. Gondor was once again at war, and it less than a week since somebody had tried to kill Aragorn. They wouldn't let just anybody wander into the throne room. Petitioners were welcomed, but they were searched, and they had to leave their weapons at the gate below.

 _I don't know how that makes me feel,_ Pippin confessed to himself. It was a comfort to think that steps were being taken to make them all safe. The Citadel was full of strangers, and it was nice to know that they weren't suddenly going to whip out a weapon and try to kill Faramir or the queen. But at the same time, it reminded him too much of the dark days of the siege, when Denethor had been so hostile and distrusting, and nobody had known if they would live to see another dawn.

Where was Merry? He looked round for him, but there was no sign of him. Probably reading, or expounding on pipeweed to some hapless healer. Merry was writing a book about it, you see, and had developed quite a passion for old lore. It was a passion that Pippin was beginning to share, but today he couldn't concentrate on reading.

Too many of the stories told of war; that was what the problem was. All the oldest ones were about the death of kings.

Back into the throne room, then, for another session. He wondered if Faramir had managed to snatch a bite to eat. It was late afternoon now, and well past time for a little snack. Had Faramir managed to have any lunch? Strong and serene, he sat in his cold stone chair, and he always seemed to know exactly what he wanted to say. He never said 'er…' or 'um…' or any of the other silly things that hobbits said when they were thinking. He never chewed his lip, struggling to decide. He never even glanced up at the empty throne above him, as if wondering if Aragorn would approve of the judgement he was making. If Pippin had come here as a stranger, he would have assumed that he was looking at the king.

Yet Faramir was troubled, Pippin knew. He had seen it on the battlements the night before, and he had seen it over breakfast. He was troubled and unhappy, but yet…

 _I'm going to have to do this one day,_ Pippin thought. Oh, not in the same way, of course. Being Thain wasn't like being the Steward of Gondor. It was little more than an honorary title, but as head of the Tooks, everyone in Tookland would be his tenants. They would come to him with their boundary disputes and their grievances, just as the people of Gondor came to Faramir now. Moreover, Aragorn had hinted that once the rebuilding of Annúminas was complete and the northern kingdom became a reality, he and Merry and Sam would have a part to play within it.

 _I don't…_ he thought, but _I have to,_ he told himself.

Finding himself a quiet spot at the foot of an ancient statue, he settled down to watch.

* * *

His head hurt. It always did now. He needed a drink, but the healers wouldn't let him have one. Said it was bad for him, or some nonsense like that. They were right, of course, but that didn't make it any easier to hear. At times, they seemed more hard and cruel than the guards were, for all that they talked to him in gentle voices and smiled at him with pity in their eyes.

And the guards weren't cruel, either, just cold. They didn't answer his questions, so he'd given up asking them. Rosseth didn't come to see him. Of course she didn't.

"Do you remember me?" the man was saying. He looked awkward and uncomfortable on the stool beside Lainor's bed.

"No," Lainor said. "You don't look like a healer and it's plain that you're no soldier, but..." _You're no soldier…_ The words struck an echo in his mind, and suddenly he thought that he remembered the man, after all. But maybe not. Memories came and went, and some true things seemed less real than dreams. "Nobody else comes," he said. "Nobody answers."

The man leant forward. "Do you know?" he asked sharply. "Do you know why they're keeping you here?"

"I was struck on the head," Lainor said. "I nearly died. I don't…"

 _I don't remember._ He had been unconscious for days, or so they told him. He had regained consciousness after the injury, then sunk back into sleep. Each time he had seemed to surface, he had sunk back down again. He couldn't remember. He couldn't remember any of it. There weren't even dreams. No dreams, except one.

"Nothing else?" the man said. "They haven't told you anything else?"

"No." Lainor lashed his head from side to side, and it hurt, oh how it hurt! No dreams, except one. He had been so tiny in that dream, alone on an empty plain. Towering above him, there was a statue of a king, as tall as the sky, with eyes that knew every secret of all men's hearts. Lainor had fallen to his knees before him and sobbed, because there was nothing inside him but worthlessness and cowardice, and now the king knew. He knew.

"You were attacked," the man said, "because…" He broke off then, and looked across Lainor's bed towards the guard at the door, presumably waiting to see if he was allowed to carry on. _Don't!_ Lainor thought. _Please, tell him no!_ But the guard must have nodded, because the man continued. "An assassin was using your loft as a hiding place. He tried to kill the king, but he was unsuccessful. _He was unsuccessful_ ," he stressed.

Lainor felt tears welling up in his eyes. His head was throbbing. Oh, how his head was throbbing. He couldn't hold onto memories any longer. He forgot things. _Oh, please…_

"They're keeping you under guard because they fear you might be implicated," the man said gently. "The assassin was hiding in your loft for days, after all."

"Don't," Lainor begged, just as the guard by the door spoke up. "He already knows, sir. He's been told all this before."

Told it before. Told it a second time, when he had put his hands to his ears and refused to hear it. Heard it a third time and a fourth time and a fifth time, alone in the dark and close to sleeping. He slammed the doors of memory, but still it came seeping out. _I don't hear it!_ he cried, and _I won't remember it!_ but still the whisper came.

 _Because of you, the king might have died._

"I didn't know he was there!" he protested. "I drink too much. I stopped caring about anything, because Rosseth left me. She was right to leave me. I'm just a coward. I deserted the king's army on the way to the Black Gate. I betrayed my people, and now I've betrayed my king. I didn't know he was there, you've got to believe me, but I know it doesn't make any difference. If I was a traitor, at least I'd have done it out of choice, but this…" He was sobbing now. He'd sobbed the last time, too. "I didn't mean to. I didn't know. I need a drink. I didn't know. I'll forget it in the morning. I forget things." He grabbed the man's wrist, holding it tight. "I forget things, you know."

"You should not forget this," the man said quietly. "You made a mistake. Don't let it break you."

Lainor shoved him away. The stool rocked backwards, two legs leaving the ground, then crashing back. "What do you know about it?" he shouted. "You don't understand!"

"You rode out with the king, and then deserted," the man said, and oh, how Lainor hated him! "I didn't even ride out. I refused the call. I hid. I…" He pressed his hands to his mouth, and let out a breath. "For a few years, I let the guilt rule me. It turned me bitter. It made me someone I don't really like that much, when I look back. But I was forgiven by… someone who had the right to forgive. And then I forgave myself. I can't erase the mistakes of my past, but I can make sure that I don't repeat them. I can ensure that my new deeds speak more loudly than the old ones."

Nothing. His words meant nothing. Lainor rolled over, turning away from him, and closed his eyes.

He would forget this in the morning.

* * *

The next day was hotter than ever, and there was little wind. Faramir was busy, and the children were with their tutors and their nurses, the little ones playing in the garden, while Eldarion and Elboron were learning about herbs. Snatches of their happy voices drifted in through the window.

It was cooler inside, enclosed by walls of thick, cold stone. Éowyn and Arwen sat together, in silence for the most part. Arwen was busy with her embroidery, but Éowyn had never really developed a taste for needlework. In Gondor, it was the lot of noble ladies to sew, or so it seemed, but in the Riddermark, Éowyn had longed to wield a keener blade.

"Can you see him?" Éowyn blurted out. She had not meant to say it, but like a warrior who drew his sword and challenged his enemy, she was committed now. "Do you know what he's doing? They say you can. The singers that tell your story, they say that you watched over him from afar for many years."

"They turn us into tales, who are yet living." Arwen laid her embroidery ring upon her lap, and rested her needle carefully on the stitching. Éowyn wondered what she was sewing. There were silver leaves there, and golden trees.

"I just…" Éowyn began, but she let it fade away. There was no fire in the hearth, but out of habit, a hound had been sleeping there. It rose up now, and trotted over to her, resting its long nose in her lap.

"I cannot see him," the queen said, "but I know that he is well. If he were to be hurt, then I would know it. I hope I would know it," she said, after a pause, "for I am not as once I was."

"But in the past, when he was hurt, you knew it?" Éowyn asked, as she fondled the hound's feathery ears.

"I knew it," Arwen said.

The hound rested its weight against her, and she pressed her hand against its sleek neck. "Was he hurt often?" she asked.

"More than I would have wished," Arwen said, "and almost always when he was alone. He has never spoken of those times. Even I know little of them, merely that they happened, and that he lived through them, and carried on. He always carries on."

"Yes," Éowyn agreed.

There was always a slight barrier between her and the queen. It was not because of Éowyn's love for the king. Arwen had never doubted Aragorn, and once Éowyn had given her love to Faramir, she had never regretted her choice. But Arwen was an elf, and older by far than Éowyn. Growing up, Éowyn had known little of female company, but after her mother's death, she had been the highest ranking woman in the Riddermark. Sometimes Éowyn wondered if the slight awkwardness she felt with the queen came from the fact that she felt so much smaller than her, not in stature, but in every other way. It was not something that Éowyn, granddaughter of a queen, had often felt in the years of her growing. It was not something that Éowyn, Lady of the Shield-Arm and mistress of Emyn Arnen, was accustomed to feeling at all.

"But I know that they reached the crossroads last night," Arwen said, as footsteps approached the open door. "They plan a longer march today, northwards through Ithilien. Nay," she said, laughing, when Éowyn opened her mouth to ask her how she knew this, when she had denied being able to see him. "A messenger came in late last night, after you had gone to bed. Did Faramir not tell you?"

"Faramir was busy," Faramir said, appearing in the doorway. "I apologise for that, my lady." His face was grave. Éowyn had not seen him all day. She was an early riser, but he had risen yet earlier.

"What is it?" Éowyn asked, rising to her feet. "What's happened?"

"It could be nothing," Faramir said, "but…" He sat down stiffly on the nearest chair. "No, not nothing," he said, "because another man is dead. That is never nothing." He sighed, but his shoulders remained tense. He was deeply troubled, Éowyn could tell. "There are deaths at the best of times," he said. "That is the tragedy of our age. The great enemy has fallen, but we who are left turn on each other. Men kill other men in arguments over women or dice games or money. Some just kill because they like it."

"Who has died?" the queen asked.

"Nobody," Faramir said. "That is what they will say. Nobody of any importance. But still somebody. Somebody." He passed a hand across his face, wiping sweat from his brow. "My feeling is that it is just an ordinary murder, nothing to do with our war. But who can tell? There is violence at the best of times, but now each act of violence just serves to feed the fear."

* * *

An army moved unbearably slowly when it was full of men-at-arms on foot. There were footmen in the Riddermark, of course, but whenever Éomer had ridden to war, he had done so at the head of a body of riders, moving like the wind. It was different in Gondor, of course, where too many lords remained suspicious of horses. Aragorn had barely three hundred mounted knights, and they had to move at the speed of a man-at-arms's walking.

Éomer wanted to ride free. He remembered walks with his mother as a child, as the dogs had joyously raced around them, charging ahead, then circling back to them, only to race on ahead again. The dogs must have covered four times the distance that his family had covered, with little Éowyn toddling along, holding mother's hand.

 _Now I know what the dogs felt like,_ he thought, as he removed his armour at the end of the second day. Then he chuckled quietly at the ridiculousness of the situation: the he, the lord of the Eorlingas, wanted to race around the army like a dog with an over-abundance of energy. Some of his riders were outside now, galloping in the cooling air of the evening. _Dogs,_ he thought, and he smiled, because like his men, the dogs of his childhood had been loyal, swift and fearless.

Then he turned away from them, and looked over at Aragorn's tent. Its flap was pinned back, letting in air, but it showed nothing of the space within. _Does Aragorn feel the same impatience?_ he wondered. Perhaps he did, but perhaps he did not. He had spent many decades as a Ranger, after all, and had covered many thousands of leagues on foot.

 _I wish…!_ Éomer thought, but there was no changing things. Aragorn had explained things to him, and this was how things had to be. Scouts had gone out ahead, and more were going out tomorrow, when Legolas and his elves joined the army. If they came back and reported that more haste was needed, then haste would be found, even if they left the rest of the army far behind.

They were heading through Ithilien now, twenty-five miles north of the crossroads. It was an easy march, no risk of orcs falling upon them from the marches of Mordor. It was a strange thing to set out for war, and then ride so slowly, through a beautiful land that lay in friendly hands.

Tomorrow would be the same, and tomorrow and tomorrow…

And after that…? That was what counted. Would that the days would hasten, and bring them to that day!


	8. On the Trail

**Chapter eight: On the Trail**

From _Captains of the West_ by Faramir of Lamedon, F.A. 831

Little of importance happened on the first days of the campaign. The first day's march took them to the Crossroads, and after that, it was a case of marching slowly northwards through Ithilien. There are few records of those days; none than concern us, at any rate. Other self-styled "scholars" like to babble about the experience of the common man, but the only history worth telling is the history of great men and kings.

If Elessar made speeches in those first four days, they have not survived. If he and Éomer debated tactics in their tents, no scribe was there to record what they said. Messengers were sent back to Minas Tirith, of course, but they report only that the march was going well. Faramir sent letters of his own, but they, too, reveal little. If others, lengthier reports were sent by secret ways, they were not preserved.

History is the story of great men, but when the great men are silent, no tales can be told.

* * *

Hasad's wound was turning bad, but Kabil was not allowed to say anything about it. He had tried once, but Hasad had knocked him down with a blow to the jaw, and hit him again when he was down. He had done it with his left arm, though.

Kabil blamed the water. It had seemed like a minor wound, but Hasad had washed it in one of the streams that flowed through these bitter, blasted lands. The Brown Lands, the westerners called them, and it was an appropriate name. The water tasted wholesome enough when you drank it, but you couldn't take any chances when cleaning an open wound. Hasad should have known better. No, Hasad was Kabil's lord, and therefore he knew best, but still…

 _How long do we have to stay here?_ he wondered, but he knew better than to ask it. It was days since their last raid. There were no westerners left alive in the Brown Lands. News of the killings would have reached Gondor days ago, and the king of Gondor was bound to answer. He would send more men, stronger and better armed than the ones they had killed, and Samir and his army would be ready for them.

But the army was not here yet. It took time to move a great force across such inhospitable terrain, especially when the force was far from united. Samir had brought the warring clans together, but it was a loose alliance, liable to fracture at any time. Each lord would be eager to win all the glory. They would forever be riding away on their own forays and hunting trips. If they found good food, they would not share it. Even as they followed Samir, they would be trying to hamper the ambitions of the other lords. It was just the way of things. It was what a lord did. Hadn't Hasad himself sent over half his force away, because they owed their first loyalty to other lords?

"They will come," Hasad said, muttering it to himself as he stood stiffly in his chariot. Perhaps his thoughts had been following a similar course to Kabil's, or perhaps he was talking about something else entirely. He was feverish, although he claimed not to be, and sometimes muttered the strangest things. The bandage around his arm was stained with dark blood.

"Yes," Kabil said. "They will come."

"And they will die," Hasad said, so maybe he was talking about the men from Gondor, and not about Samir, after all.

They had no news of the westerners. Samir had a spy in Minas Tirith, Kabil knew, and messengers regularly rode down to collect his reports. They had seen one pass some six days since, but they had not yet seen him return. There were other scouts out, too, of course, watching to see what manner of an answer the King of Gondor had chosen to send. They would report to Samir, of course, but Samir would tell Hasad, surely, if there was any news that they needed to know. But he could not be sure of it. Samir was a lord, after all, and they were just his sworn men, men who obeyed.

So here they were, waiting in the Brown Lands where the hunting was so poor. Life was gradually beginning to return to the lands now that Sauron was gone. The men of Gondor had even started to farm it, and had managed to make a few, fragile crops grow, but Kabil's people were no farmers. They had to range far for their hunting. Hasad had split his remaining forces, because it was easier to feed two groups of fifty than to hunt for a group twice that size. They were more likely to encounter the enemy, too. Kabil had almost begged to command the second group, but then he had seen the sweat glistening on Hasad's brow, and had stayed silent.

 _So here we are,_ he thought. Fifty warriors in a blasted land, caught between Samir's challenge and the King of Gondor's answer.

"They will die," Hasad said again, looking up at a screecher-bird that circled high above, searching in vain for prey, "because we will kill them, every last man of them."

"Yes," Kabil agreed. "We will."

* * *

Pippin was hardly touching his lemon cakes. He took a small mouthful, then put the cake down. He picked it up again, and took a smaller mouthful, barely a nibble, really. Then he pushed his plate away.

"We need to be doing something, Merry," he said.

Merry was supposedly reading, but in the last hour, he had turned barely a page. "Yes," he said.

They weren't made for a life like this, that was the problem. Back home, Sam was fond of saying that Pippin belonged as much to Gondor as to the Shire, and Merry as much to Rohan as to Buckland, but it wasn't true, not really. Even when Pippin was Thain, he would still farm the family acres. Merry was Master of Buckland, but Brandy Hall was packed with his relatives, some of them very distant ones, of humble means. Mayor and Thain and Master, they all feasted at the common table when festivals came round.

"It isn't Strider's fault," Pippin said, because they were alone, so he could call him by that name. "He wishes things were different. That's why he came out to meet us, just him and Legolas and Gimli, without any of these rules. These people of Gondor, they're so full of these rules of what you should and shouldn't do."

And he was a knight of Gondor, of course. He was supposed to obey those rules. But Aragorn had never called upon him to take up his duties. If he had done so, it might be different. If he had done so, Pippin might have been content to stay quietly in the Citadel, guarding the white tree with the rest of them.

"It isn't just because of the rules," Merry said, laying his palm on the open page of his book. "It's because we're their guests. They don't want us to be troubled. They value the laws of hospitality here."

"Just like we do," Pippin said. "Like anyone does."

"Yes," Merry said. "I don't mean to criticise them. It's just…"

It was just that they were stuck here in the Citadel. There was nothing like this at home. Minas Tirith was a city of layers, and between the Citadel at the top and the first level far below, there was such a great gulf. It was a necessary gulf, of course, especially during a war. The white tree had to be preserved, and the crown, and the king…

But the king wasn't here.

What entertainment had been planned for them, Pippin wondered, had war not broken out? The trip to Osgiliath had happened, but nothing else. They would have spent long days just lounging in the gardens with their old friends, eating picnics from patterned rugs. They would have visited Emyn Arnen and spent many days there. They would have…

No, he thought. There was no point in thinking about such things. What had happened had happened. This was what they were left with now.

"I want to go out into the city," Pippin said. "There are so many rumours flying around, or so Faramir says. So much fear. He thinks there are enemies still lurking in the city, doing their evil work."

"There are," Merry said. "There must be."

Pippin picked up his lemon cake, then let it fall again. It collapsed into crumbs, and a bee came in from the window and landed on the largest of them. "We're good at going unseen," he said. "That's what everyone says, anyway. Even Aragorn says it, and he's a Ranger, so he should know. And who's better than a hobbit when it comes to eating and drinking and carousing with people in taverns? That's where the secrets always are, and these men of Gondor, I don't think they're very good at those sort of things. And I packed my Lórien cloak. Did you?" he asked, and when Merry nodded, he said, "Good. That'll help."

"You're right. I've been thinking it myself. We should be out there, finding answers." Merry looked more hopeful than he had in days.

"Yes," Pippin said. "Of course, we aren't very…" He gestured with his hands, indicating his height. "Inconspicuous," he said. "On the contrary, we're quite distinctive."

"We can wear shoes," Merry said, "and in the dark, they'll think we're children. _Tall_ children," he added, holding his hand flat above the top of his head, as if he was marking his height on the wall.

"Will Faramir let us?" Pippin asked, struck with sudden doubt.

"Can Faramir stop us?" Merry said, who was Master of Buckland now, and lord of his own domain within the northern kingdom, where Gondor held no sway.

* * *

Mablung had kept up. As the king had commanded, he had kept up for two days, and had been rewarded with a task. Another two days had passed since then, spent beneath the trees in Ithilien. He was hooded again, and clad in the old brown and green.

It was not the same. Ithilien was no longer enemy territory. There was no risk of sudden attack by orcs or creatures yet fouler. When he heard voices, he crouched down and hid himself in the undergrowth until they had passed, but they were no longer the guttural voices of enemies. They were farmers or lovers or children. He hid from them, but they were no threat.

Mablung was alone. Birdsong surrounded him, but the birds were real. There were no Rangers here, calling messages to each other in the wilds. There was no comrade at his back, and no captain to come if he called. Years had passed. They lived in a new age now, and the Rangers had gone from Ithilien.

It had always been a beautiful place, even then. Some of the Rangers had claimed not to notice its beauty, and saw it only as a theatre for war. When they looked upon a tree, they saw it only as a potential hiding place for an enemy, not as a thing of beauty in its own right. That was what they claimed, at any rate; Mablung had never been entirely sure that he believed them.

For him, though, the beauty had been at the very heart of things. It had reminded him daily of what they were fighting for. It had given him hope, because while the beauty of Ithilien endured, the enemy's victory was not yet complete. And just like Faramir, he had dreamed of a future in which Ithilien was free again, and farmers and lovers and children could wander its valleys openly and in peace.

That future had come to pass, and now, just a few short years later, it was under threat again. Farmers had died in the Brown Lands, and women and lovers and children. Once again, an army was moving through Ithilien. If it failed…

 _It will not fail!_ That was what the common men-at-arms said when anyone dared to breathe their fears aloud. Their captains said it even more fervently, determined to keep morale high. But Mablung was a Ranger, and Rangers were not afraid to talk of dark possibilities. Whenever Faramir had led them out, he had carefully considered everything that might go wrong, and prepared for it. It had saved their lives many times. _If the army fails…_ Mablung thought. _If I fail…_

It was the day before midsummer, and everything around him was entwined with wild roses. Mablung grasped a tendril now, heedless of the thorns.

 _If I fail…_

Then he let out a breath, chiding his foolishness, because in truth, there was little chance of him making the slightest bit of difference in Ithilien. He was only one scout out of many, after all, and many of the others were elves, with keen hearing and eyes still keener. He was scouting in friendly territory, only a few miles away from the army itself. He was looking not for fighting men, but for messengers, for spies and enemy scouts. "I doubt we can keep our marching secret," the king had said, "but I intend to try."

And Mablung was glad to be out here in the wilds, helping him, even if he had little chance of making a difference. His true task would start once they passed the Morannon and headed into the Brown Lands, but for now-

Not far behind him, a twig snapped. Mablung did not drop to the ground, because that would have made too much noise. He did not gasp, because even that might be heard. Instead, he lowered himself slowly into a crouch, and silently unsheathed his knife.

* * *

"Of course," Pippin said, "there's a flaw in our plan, something we didn't consider yesterday."

"There is indeed," Merry agreed. "Never mind. It might rain tomorrow."

"Tomorrow's Midsummer's Day," Pippin said. "Feastings and festivals and whatnot."

"Doesn't mean it can't rain, though," said Merry. "Do you remember that Lithe when it rained so much that all the waggons carrying victuals for the Mayor's party got bogged down in the mud and everything had to be carried halfway across the Shire by hand?"

"And, strangely, only half of it got as far as old Whitfoot's table." Pippin chuckled. "Ruined by the rain: that's what we told him, wasn't it? But that was back in the Shire. This is Gondor, down in the sunny south."

They passed a group of children playing soldiers on a street corner. One by one, the children lowered their wooden swords and turned and stared.

"Yes," said Pippin, "a definite flaw." It was just too hot! It was too hot for an elven cloak, and too hot to hide their faces under a hood. They could have endured the heat of it, but they would have stood out like a sore thumb. Everyone else was wearing their summer clothes. Cloaked and hooded, Merry and Pippin might have looked like children, but they would have looked like children with something to hide. In this climate of suspicion, they would have drawn the very attention that they were trying to avoid.

Even without cloaks, they were still the centre of attention, but at least nobody was trying to unmask them as enemies. Faramir's chief concern had been that the enemy agents in the city would target them if they went out alone. It was well known that they were close friends with the king, after all, and although murdering them would do nothing whatsoever to weaken the military might of Gondor, it would be a bitter injury to Aragorn himself. _He needn't have worried,_ Pippin thought. _The way everyone's staring so, anyone who tried to raise a hand against us would be brought down by a mob._

"Oh well," said Merry. "We can still keep our eyes and ears open, even if we can't do it unseen. Shall we go to a tavern?"

"It's a bit early, isn't it? Yes, let's," said Pippin, as a tower bell struck four.

He sniffed the air, trying to find the distinctive smell that an ale-house always produced. Instead, he scented flowers. Across the street, a woman was hanging out flower garlands, draping them from the railings that surrounded a pleasant-looking terrace. A girl followed after her, with many-coloured ribbons draped across her arm. She was supposed to be tying them in bows around the railings, but when she saw Merry and Pippin, she stopped to stare.

"They must be getting ready for Midsummer," Pippin said, fighting the urge to stare back at her. "How pretty it looks! Strange that they're still celebrating it, though, what with…"

"Of course they're still celebrating it." Merry sounded surprisingly fervent. "They'll celebrate it all the more. Life goes on. It's what _we_ would do."

"Yes," Pippin said. "Yes, but…" But then he saw the wooden sign that hung from the building with the pretty terrace. "It's a tavern!" he cried. " _The Sword and Stars_. Let's go in! If we sit on that terrace, the garlands might hide us a bit, and we'll be able to hear what people are saying in the street. Then we can tell Faramir if we hear anything important or see anything suspicious. Suspicious things often happen in ale houses," he added, in case Merry wasn't convinced.

But Merry needed no convincing. He disliked the staring even more than Pippin did, it seemed. "It makes me think we don't belong here _,"_ he had confessed, "as if we're just visitors in a world that will never be ours."

* * *

Pace by silent pace, Mablung moved forward. The other man was less skilled than him. There had been no more broken twigs, but here and there, there were rustlings of leaves. This was a man who was being cautious, but did not yet know that there was anyone near enough to hear him. He was a man who was trying to travel swiftly, Mablung thought, but who knew that scouts were abroad, and so tried to keep himself hidden.

It was not enough. It would have fooled a farmer, but it was not enough to keep him hidden from one of Captain Faramir's Rangers of Ithilien.

But who was he? That was the question. No elf would have broken a twig beneath their feet, that was for sure. The king was gifted in the ways of stealth himself, and would never employ a scout who made such a basic mistake. An enemy, then? Whoever he was, he was travelling north. An enemy scout who had sneaked close to the army, noted its strength, and now was hastening home to report to his captain?

A jay rose up from a treetop, shouting. Mablung took advantage of the brief moment of noise to hurry on several paces, almost running. He was scared of losing his quarry. But they were not that far from Henneth Annûn, and Mablung knew this terrain. If the other man carried on in the same direction, he would soon be halted by a steep-sided valley, but Mablung knew how to cross it.

He had no bow to bring the man down from a distance, but even if he had, he would not have done so, just in case this was a friend or an innocent. Life had been simpler in the days before the War of the Ring. Enemies had been hideous creatures, and you knew they were enemies as soon as you saw them. Now enemies could look the same as friends. They could hide in Minas Tirith with murder in their hearts, without attracting notice. The evils in the world now resided in the hearts of other men. It was men, not orcs, who had killed the women and the children of the outpost.

And then, for a moment, he wished that he had a bow with him, after all. If there was any possibility that this man had been involved in that… He couldn't risk letting a guilty man escape. He had to bring him down... _No,_ he told himself. _No…_ He pushed away the memory of the dead and the dying. He had to be sure. Onwards, he crept; ever on.

He was very close to the valley now. There was only silence ahead of him, not even the rustling of leaves. The man would have emerged from the trees to find himself on the edge of a steep fall, almost a cliff, that led to a rocky stream below. He would be debating whether to risk climbing down, or whether to follow the valley westwards in the hope that its sides would become less steep. Mablung would take him when he was distracted. He would take him, secure him, and then hear his tale. If he was a friend or an innocent, let him prove it!

Mablung breathed in, and let the breath out slowly, readying himself. He edged forward. Almost there. Almost there… Another step; another silent step. The man was just yards ahead of him now, facing away from him. Another step…

Mablung was just about to take him, when a bowstring twanged behind him. He never saw the arrow fly.

* * *

It was strange how traditions started, Daerion mused. Gondor was a place of tradition, and it was easy to assume that all traditions had deep meaning; that they harked back to some great tale from the past.

It wasn't true, of course. _The Sword and Stars_ had been his father's tavern, and it was where Daerion had been born. When he was a child, the terrace outside had been enclosed by a wooden trellis on which a vine had grown. Then the vine had died, and for a festival one spring, his mother had tied ribbons in its place. She had left them there for years, adding new ones each spring, but letting the old ones remain, even as they had faded and become spotted with mildew.

The tavern was now run by one of Daerion's great-nephews, and the trellis had long gone. There were ornate metal railings around the terrace now, but they were still decorated with ribbons. The tradition had moved from spring to midsummer, and there were garlands now, as well as ribbons. If he asked his great-nephew's daughter why she tied ribbons to the railings, she doubtless wouldn't know. Either that, or she would tell him some reason for it: a reason that bore no resemblance to the truth that Daerion remembered.

The truth was merely that his mother was sad when the vine died, and ribbons had been going cheap in the market one day.

The people of Minas Tirith still liked to sit and drink on the terrace, though, whether they did so beside ribbons or beneath a vine. The two halflings were there, Daerion saw. One of them, the one who served Gondor, was entertaining the rest of the table with a story of some sort. The other was listening and smiling, but he was alert at the same time, watching the street. The other drinkers were probably unaware of his watchfulness, but Daerion had been a soldier for over fifty years, and he knew what he saw.

 _What is he watching for?_ Daerion wondered. _And why are they down here at all, when they're guests of the king?_

But it was not for him to wonder. They seemed to be in no danger, and their business was their own. Daerion was off duty for the rest of the day, and he had family to visit. Although they lived close to his guardhouse, he seldom saw them. Duty came first, of course. It always did.

* * *

The arrowhead had gone clean through the man's sword hand. Disarmed and in pain, he had been easy to capture. Even if they had not wounded him first, Mablung thought, they would have captured him effortlessly. He would have been less successful, had he been allowed to take that final step.

"I didn't know you were there," he said uselessly.

They had known where _he_ was, of course. They had watched him prepare his attack, and they had taken measures to prevent it. Because they had feared that he would bungle it, and lose them their man. They were right, too; that was the worst of it.

"He knew you were following him," Lord Legolas said. "You could not see it, but he was ready for you. He might have killed you, or you might have killed him, or it could be that both of you would have gone over. We had to act."

The man was their prisoner now. His wrists were tightly bound, but the rope that tied his ankles was long enough for him to take short steps. They had wrestled him to the floor, and now the other elf was tending the wound on the man's hand, and getting no thanks for it.

Lord Legolas gestured to Mablung to follow him along the lip of the valley, and Mablung did so. When they were far enough away for the man not to hear them, Legolas spoke. "Lasdir and I have followed his trail for some leagues."

"He was spying on the army?" Mablung asked.

Legolas shook his head. "He came from the south. He was behind the army, and he skirted around it without stopping."

"From the south?" Mablung echoed. "From Osgiliath? From Minas Tirith, even?

"It could be." Legolas looked grave. The other elf looked up, even as his hands continued to work on the man's wound.

"But he's definitely an enemy?" The man looked little different from some of Mablung's fellow Rangers, whose families had come from northern Ithilien before its loss. He was a little darker than most, it was true, but in a hot summer like this, even lords with the blood of Westernesse lost their usual pallor.

"I believe he is," Legolas said. "He was preparing to fight you, and he has not protested his innocence, either because he does not know your tongue, or because he know that he cannot speak it without his accent giving him away."

"So what was he doing?" Mablung asked. "And where was he going, and what are you going to do with him now?"

"Take him to King Elessar," Legolas said, "who will have questions to ask him, and answers to obtain."

* * *

It was almost dark when Daerion left the tavern. As a child, he had been the youngest of a large family, with his oldest brothers and sisters already grown up. Now he was the only one left, and even some of his nephews and nieces had already died. He was the last of his generation, but visiting his old home never made him sorrowful. His childhood home was in safe hands, and his family always made him welcome. They were interested in his tales of the past, and that seemed more important with every year that passed. He was an old man with no children, and he wanted to be remembered.

And he _would_ be remembered, he thought, if only for a little while. His family were not the only ones who would remember him. They still came back to him, sometimes, the guardsmen who had served under him in the past. Some had moved to other companies, and some had left the Guard entirely, but whenever they came to Minas Tirith, they sought him out.

"I wonder what the king's doing now," he heard someone say from behind an open window. "Four days since they marched away. They'll be somewhere in the north of Ithilien, I reckon. Will they pass the Black Gate tomorrow or the day after? Now _that's_ a place I've only ever heard of, and hope never to see."

" _He_ won't be afraid of it, at any rate," came the reply.

As a child who had adored Captain Thorongil, Daerion would have believed just the same. As an old man who revered his king, even now he was inclined to believe it. But he had once overheard a young guardsman declaring that good old Captain Daerion had never known a moment's fear. It was not true, of course. The king was different, but…

 _The king is still a man,_ Daerion thought, and like the unseen voice from the window, he wondered what the king was doing now, and where he was, and what he was thinking.

All the while, he was making his slow way back towards the guard house. The streets were busy, and he grew tired of trying to weave his way through the crowds. Instead, he ducked into a small alleyway that he had used so often as a child. It snaked between buildings and it passed through dark yards. It was a longer route, but he hoped it would be a quicker one.

The attack came when he was at the darkest part, shaded by towers on either side. He heard the hiss of a blade on a scabbard, and that was what saved him at first. Whirling round, he dodged the blow that would have killed him, but he was slow to get his own sword out. A second blow nicked his side, but got slowed by the folds of his shirt. He didn't think it had marked him much, but it was hard to tell in the heat of battle.

Then his own sword was free, and he fought back. It was too dark to see his assailant's face clearly, but he gained an impression of it: deep-set eyes, a prominent nose, a mouth that was pressed tight with concentration. Daerion parried another blow, feinted, and landed a blow of his own. His attacker leapt backwards just in time to save his body from the upwards slash, but the tip of Daerion's sword gouged the man's cheek.

Someone shouted not far away. "Help!" Daerion shouted, because you couldn't be proud when your life was on the line. Men who were too proud to call for help were the men who died. "To me!" he cried. "I'm a captain of the city! To me!"

But then the enemy's sword broke through his guard, gouging him across the ribs. He stumbled; struggled to right himself, but the enemy knocked him down. Daerion fell backwards, landing heavily on the jagged cobbles. Pain exploded in his head. The breath rushed out of him. He struggled to hold onto his sword, but the enemy kicked it away.

The shouting came nearer. He saw lights, torches carried in men's hands. Then he saw nothing at all, just his enemy towering over him, his body blocking out the light.


	9. Midsummer

**Chapter nine: Midsummer**

From _The Calendar Customs of Gondor,_ by Ferdinand Took, F.A. 1257

Strange as it might seem to us hobbits, the longest day of the year was not celebrated very much in Gondor during the Third Age. This began to change when King Elessar and Queen Arwen got married on Midsummer's Day. It was all bit unexpected - not to them, of course! - and there weren't that many flowers to be found in the city at that time, but the people did what they could to celebrate at short notice.

The following year, when the first anniversary of the wedding came around, the people were determined to give them the sort of celebration they hadn't managed for the wedding itself. Weddings, as we all know, are not proper weddings without lots of food and drink and copious flowers. One year on, there were lots of flowers around - the elves had been busy! - so the people of Gondor twined them into garlands and draped them on anything that stood still long enough to be draped. Their food wasn't up to hobbit standards, though, or so we must assume.

It was King Elessar himself who was responsible for gradually changing the celebration from a commemoration of his wedding to a celebration of Midsummer itself. There were altogether too many high days and holidays centred on his own person, or so he remarked once to his great friend Peregrin Took, my esteemed ancestor. The people of Gondor wanted to make holidays of his birthday, the anniversary of his coronation, his wedding, and many other special days. They usually wanted him to appear at them, too, in his crown (quite uncomfortable, surely!) and shiny cloak. He and the queen had waited many decades for their wedding, and its anniversary was a private thing between them, one of the few private things left to them as king and queen. But the longest day would endure long after they had departed. Let the people of Gondor celebrate the triumph of light over darkness: a tale that would endure for ever more!

In this decision, of course, he was doubtless influenced greatly not only by his hobbit friends, but by his own memories of midsummers in the north. He had often travelled through the fringes of the Shire in his Ranger days, and he must have seen our Lithe celebrations and decided that they were good. (It is, however, difficult to imagine that the king adopted all our hobbit Lithe customs. There was one memorable Lithe when the son of the Master of Buckland - long after Meriadoc's time, of course - danced on the table, slipped on a jelly, and fell slap bang into the lap of the Mayor's wife. It is unlikely that King Elessar ever did a thing like that.)

However, it is said that the biggest leap forward in the development of the Midsummer festival came in the twelfth year of the Fourth Age, when King Elessar rode out to war just days before. He left behind a kingdom that was seething with worry and disquiet. Many people had kinsfolk away with the army, and they were afraid for them.

So when Midsummer came, they observed it with a new intensity. They clung to happiness, because they needed to. They had lived through the darkest days of all, and they knew that these days, however dark, could never be as dark as the days of the Dark Lord's ascendancy. So they celebrated the longest day in order to tell themselves - and each other! - that hope would always survive.

But from that year on, a darker side crept into the celebrations. Darker? Perhaps not, but sadder, anyway. More solemn. Here in the Shire, Lithe is a period of untrammelled joy and endless feasting. (We hobbits do like our feasts!) In Gondor that year, although they celebrated, they acknowledged their fears. The men-at-arms in Elessar's army gathered greenery in Ithilien, because they knew that the next day's march would take them to a place with no trees. To this day, all Midsummer garlands in Gondor carry one dead branch, with dried and faded flowers. Those who were left behind laid an extra place at the table, and poured a drink for the absent soldiers who had marched away. They still do that to this day in Gondor at Midsummer, and at every Midsummer feast, an extra place is set to stand for all the absent friends.

Midsummer in the longest day, you see, and in the Shire we take joy in that. In Gondor, they take joy in it, too, but they also remember that the moment Midsummer ends, the nights grow longer again, and the year ahead grows only ever more dark.

* * *

Sunlight woke him as he lay in his narrow bed, alone.

Aragorn sat up, throwing aside the thin blanket that was all that he needed to sleep under in these warm summer nights. There was a bite to the air once the sun went down, but Aragorn had spent many years as a Ranger, and had spent many winter nights outside, without even the advantage of a tent. He had never needed shelter to sleep, but light always woke him.

As well it should, he thought, because this was dawn: dawn on the longest day. Fourteen years ago, his long years of striving and hoping had finally come to an end, and Arwen had laid her hand in his, and become his wife.

Until the previous day, he had not known for sure. He had hoped, of course. He had found the sapling of the White Tree, and taken that as a sign, but there had been no messengers. Elrond, as he had discovered afterwards, had held him to the very letter of his vow. He had not stirred from Rivendell until the crown of Gondor had been laid upon Aragorn's head. And who could blame him? If Aragorn were being called upon to part from Arwen for ever more, he would have clung on desperately to every last hour, cherishing every last moment with her.

Midsummer's Day he counted as the true anniversary of his crowning. It was the day he achieved all his desire, and the day when he had known that his line would endure. But when the sun had sunk into the west at the end of the longest day, and he and Arwen had been alone beneath the stars, he had felt not like a king at all, but like the young man he once had been: Estel, so full of hope, who had glimpsed a lady in a wood and lost his heart to her.

Every Midsummer since then, he had woken with Arwen at his side. Wrapping the grey cloak around his shoulders, he went outside, and looked south-west, where Minas Tirith lay. Did Arwen stand in a window and look towards him?

 _Yes,_ he thought, knowing it beyond doubt. He smiled, and almost raised a hand in greeting. But he did not have the gift of seeing her across the leagues. At times, she had known where he was on his travels, but all he had seen of her were memories and thoughts. It was only hope that allowed him to picture her so clearly, standing in a high window in the Citadel, looking towards him in the dawn. Just hope and wishful thinking. How many other men-at-arms were doing the same, as they dreamed of their wives and sweethearts back home?

Turning away from Minas Tirith, he surveyed the camp. Many of the men were already stirring, although the trumpets had not yet sounded to summon them from their beds. Several of them were cutting boughs from the trees, and more sat around their camp fires weaving flowers into garlands, and setting them like circlets around their helms.

This was their last morning in Ithilien. Today they would pass the Black Gate. He was taking the army around to the west of it, and they would not see the Gate itself. They would not march across the place where they had made their desperate last stand; the place where men of Gondor had died. But even there, the influence of the Morannon would be felt. The power of Mordor was broken, and life was beginning to return to the lands near its borders, but some places had been poisoned beyond hope of healing.

 _And so they bring flowers to the wilderness,_ he thought, _and living branches to the desolation._ He would pluck his own bough from the woodlands, he resolved, before he rode away.

But there were tasks to be done ere that happened, and he had spent too long today in thought and dreaming. Returning to his tent, he dressed quickly, waving aside the help of his attendant. Men bowed and saluted as he strode across the compound that housed the commander's tents. Acknowledging them with a nod, he passed through the field where the Rohirrim kept their horses, and headed for the well-guarded tent where they were keeping the prisoner.

"He was quiet during the night, lord," said the guard outside the sealed opening. "He did not attempt an escape."

"Good." Aragorn stood quietly while they unfastened the loops that held the tent flap shut. There were other guards inside, of course. "Leave us," Aragorn commanded them, and although he could tell that they feared to leave their king alone with the prisoner, they obeyed him without demur.

Aragorn stayed near the entrance, the flapping canvas at his back. His sword was girded to his belt. He kept his hand on the hilt, but did not draw it. "Do you know who I am?" he asked.

The prisoner was bound to the central pole of the tent, but with a rope long enough to allow him a certain range of movement. He had blankets and good food, no different from the fare that Aragorn and the other lords had eaten themselves the night before. He was sitting upright, his back straight as he leant against the pole. His knees were bent, and he held his wounded hand carefully in his lap, supporting it with the uninjured hand.

"You are the king of Gondor," said the prisoner, his accent heavy.

"Yes." Aragorn did not move. The sun was rising higher, and the canvas was thin. Enough light fell on his face for the man to be able to see his expression. "And you are a spy."

"And you don't have spies of your own?" the prisoner said. His face went taut as the force of his resentment caused him to jolt his wounded hand, but he made no sound of pain. "Or do you call them scouts? Do you deny the shame of it, and cast all the shame on us, your enemies?"

Aragorn took a step forward, knowing that it would leave his face illuminated all the more. "And even though you are a spy," he said, switching into the language of the clans, "your wound was tended. You were fed and treated well. You were given a night for sleep and recovery before anyone came to question you. And I come alone. You see no torturer, no man who relishes pain."

"Or so you claim," the man began, then stopped as he realised that he had fallen into the trap. He had shown that he understood Aragorn's words, and he had answered in the same tongue, speaking it as one born to it. After this, there was no denying where he came from.

"You were sent by Samir," Aragorn told him, "who has united the clans and now sends them against us. You have been in Minas Tirith, and now you race homewards. What did you see there? What message do you carry?" Another step. Outside he heard the sound of clashing swords: knights at their morning exercises. "Shall I tell you?" he said quietly.

And Aragorn told the prisoner: not everything, of course, but enough. The man's face changed as he told it. Hostility turned to confusion. He shook his head in denial and then in disbelief. His hands rose to his chest, the uninjured one cushioning the other one protectively.

When Aragorn fell silent, having said all those things that it was safe to say, the prisoner spoke, and said the rest of it.

He said nothing that Aragorn had not expected, but at least he had heard it now.

* * *

Captain Daerion was dead. He heard someone say that quite clearly. Voices drifting through the window. A cry of dismay. Those savage Easterlings had killed him. Dead, they said. Dead.

Daerion closed his eyes and drifted. A smell of herbs. Bells and flowers. Captain Thorongil was healing him, and there was a green jewel on his breast. No, no. That was years ago now; years ago, and he was now an old man. He should have retired long ago. A younger captain wouldn't have let himself get ambushed like that.

"Not the captain! The captain's slain?"

Dead. Dead. How would he be remembered? Coloured ribbons and flower garlands, where once there had been a vine.

And then he was suddenly and fully awake. He was in his quarters, and it was daylight, sunlight seeping through the thick curtains. He was wounded, yes, but he had been wounded before, and worse, by the feel of things. "Why are they saying that I'm dead?" His voice was weaker than he would have liked. There was no-one there. The room was empty, but someone had put flowers beside his bed: something that none of his guardsmen would have done, surely, "but it _is_ Midsummer," he murmured.

Unless Midsummer had come and gone. Unless he had slept for days. Unless they called him dead because he had lain in a swoon for so long that they had given him up as dead.

An old man, he thought. An old man, past his time.

He threw back his covers, but the sharp pain in his side made him stop half way through the movement. The gouge across his ribs; he remembered that. The duller pain was on the back of his head. _From when I fell,_ he thought. _But what…?_

His last memory was of his attacker looming over him, armed, and ready to kill.

The door opened, and in came the last people he would ever have expected to see.

"Oh," said the perian; _Peregrin,_ he thought. _His name is Peregrin._ "You're awake. Good."

"We found you," said the other one, and if the first one was Peregrin, then this was Meriadoc, the one who had helped slay the Lord of the Nazgûl. That was a more than Daerion had done. He had tried to stand against that dread lord, but had failed, falling into darkness and terror.

"Saved you," said Peregrin.

There was only one chair beside Daerion's bed. Meriadoc and Peregrin dithered over it for a moment, each one trying to be polite and defer to the other, before Meriadoc took it. It was too high for him, of course, but he pushed himself dextrously onto it and sat with his legs dangling. Peregrin stood beside the chair, one hand on its back. Daerion just lay there, propped up on his elbow, and blinked stupidly at them.

"We were in the tavern, you see," Peregrin said. "We'd been there for… some hours. It wasn't the beer, you understand, but the pies…! There was cherry pie and apple pie and pie made from some strange purple fruit I've never seen before, and all in man-sized portions, of course. I had three." Meriadoc cleared his throat pointedly. "Well, five, but it all took hours, and then when we were leaving, we wanted a bit of air, when we saw a tall fellow acting suspiciously and popping into an alley…"

"He doesn't mean you," Meriadoc interrupted, speaking in a reassuring tone. "He means the man who attacked you. We followed him, you see, and then he attacked you, and you shouted, and we shouted, and then everyone was shouting, racing up with torches."

"I didn't see you," Daerion managed weakly. He remembered the torches, though, and the dark shadow of his attacker, looming over him, blocking out all light.

"People often don't," Peregrin said. He looked quite proud about it. "Your attacker was about to finish you off, I think, but he saw how close we were, so he gave up on the job and ran away. I ran after him, but I lost him. Little legs," he explained.

"I thought you were dead," said Meriadoc. "You'd fainted, I think. You had a nasty blow to the head; that's what the healer said. 'He's dead!' I might have gasped it out loud, and then the men with torches came, and they started shouting in, too. And then a soldier came running up, and _he_ shouted it, too: 'It's the captain!' and, 'They've killed Captain Daerion!'"

A shadow blocking out the torches. _Dead,_ he thought. _Dead…_ He sank into the pillows, and his head was throbbing. Even his eyes were sore.

"And… well, it gave me an idea," Peregrin said. "I thought your attacker might have heard them. I wondered if he'd run away because he thought he'd already finished the job. If he's one of those enemy agents that Faramir's so worried…" He broke off, shaking his head briskly, as if annoyed with himself. " _Well_ ," he said firmly, "I thought that perhaps you'd seen his face, and if he thought you were dead, then he'd think his secret was still safe, and get careless. So I suggested…"

"Commanded," Meriadoc said. "You commanded, Pip."

"I did, didn't I?" A slow smile spread across Peregrin's face, and Meriadoc answered him with a smile of his own, and despite everything, Daerion couldn't resist smiling himself.

"To be honest," said Meriadoc, "most of those men with torches had gone running off quite convinced that you really _were_ dead, and busy gossiping about it to everyone they met, but the soldier stayed, and we told him that it might be best if you stayed dead for a little while."

"I wounded the man," Daerion remembered. "A sword cut to the cheek."

"Good!" Peregrin clapped his hands together. "And if he thinks you're dead, he won't know we know that."

"Dead!" echoed a voice from outside. Far away, he thought he heard someone weeping. Peregrin let out a breath, his shoulders slumping. Meriadoc looked troubled, chewing his lip. A door opened somewhere else in the guardhouse, setting the curtains shivering, and making patterns of light and shade shimmer across the ceiling.

"Of course," Meriadoc said, "it's left everyone sad and angry, and they were already too sad and angry to start with. I think…" He started slowly, as if he was still thinking things through, but then he nodded in sudden decision. "Yes, we shall put it out that you were wounded nigh unto death, but will live, although you are likely to be in a swoon for many days. That will do it, do you think?"

"Yes," Daerion said weakly. "Yes, it will."

But Meriadoc, he realised, was not speaking to him at all, but to his fellow _perian_. Daerion was captain of the Great Gate of Minas Tirith, but in the matter of his death, it seemed as if he had no say at all.

And then, quite amazingly, quite ridiculously, he found that he was laughing.

* * *

Éowyn waylaid her husband in an anteroom, and forced him to sit down. Waving everyone else away, she pressed the glass of watered wine into his hands, then reached into her pouch and pulled out some lemon cakes, neatly wrapped in muslin. "You missed lunch," she said, "and very likely breakfast, too. Eat. Drink."

He dutifully touched the glass to his lips, but she doubted that he drank any. At least he took a bite of lemon cake. Footsteps approached the door. Someone spoke, quiet but firm, and the footsteps went away. She had enlisted help in this.

It was not the first time that Faramir had been left to rule in Minas Tirith in the absence of the king, but it was the first time he had done so in a time of crisis. He was busy, too busy. He would never complain, and he would never break, but she was his wife and she loved him, and so she had given him this moment.

He ate in silence for a while; breathed in and out, and slowly his shoulders relaxed. No more footsteps approached the door. This was not their quarters in the Citadel, just an impersonal anteroom, the stone walls carved with twining leaves. When in Minas Tirith, they lived in the suite of rooms that had once belonged to Faramir and Boromir, and when they dined privately, they did so in his mother's old parlour. The rooms were full of old possessions and warm with childhood memories, but it was too much to expect him to spare the time to retreat there, not in the middle of a day such as this.

"The children gathered flowers today," she told him, "for Midsummer."

"That is good." Faramir gave a faint smile. He drank some wine, but only half lowered the glass, gripping it tightly in one hand. She saw the tension returning; knew that he was preoccupied, and wondered if he would tell her why.

Another sip of wine, his lips stained red. "I have been wondering whether I should order the closure of the gates," he said.

She loved him, and he was troubled. The part of her that was ruled by her love for him wanted to take his hands and beseech him: _Faramir, just for one moment, forget your duty._ But she was a daughter of kings, and she was no stranger to duty herself. She had tried. The least she could do now was listen to him.

"The people are in a state of fear." Faramir was swirling his wine around, almost spilling it, but not quite. "There have been too many attacks, the most recent one on the captain of the Great Gate itself. That was intended not just as an attack on the man, but as a symbolic attack on our defences itself. The Great Gate is breached, its captain fallen."

"But not dead," Éowyn reminded him. "I have heard the truth of that tale."

"It was quick thinking on the part of Merry and Pippin." Faramir gave a quick smile, like sunlight glimpsed from behind a cloud and then gone again. "It remains to be seen if we will benefit from it, but in this game of ours, we cannot throw away any chances. But alive or dead, he was attacked. That is what matters. That is what is seen to matter."

Had her father ever discussed his concerns with her mother? Had he sat with her across the table and asked her opinion on the organisation of his Riders or his tactics against the orcs? She doubted it, and yet here Faramir was, exposing his doubts to her, talking to her about a problem that was consuming his attention.

Once she had dreamed of being a warrior, but when she had ridden out with the muster, she had done so because she was in despair. When she had married Faramir, she had shed her despair. But when she married Faramir, she had also turned her back on those dreams. She was a wife, a mother. She kept house in Emyn Arnen, and she tended her garden and prized things that grew and brought life, and turned her back on the instruments of death.

But the dreams had not died. The old ladies of Gondor wanted her to hide in Emyn Arnen and take no part in public life, but here was Faramir, speaking to her about the governance of Gondor. Perhaps he wanted her opinion, or perhaps he just wanted her to listen silently, but he was talking to her, and that meant everything. In this world made by men, how many other lords of Gondor would talk to their wives so?

"Aragorn wishes the gates to be closed as seldom as possible," she said.

"I know this," he said, wearily. "The gates were controlled during the war, but that was a dark necessity of the times we were living in. He wants the Gondor to be a beacon, a refuge that welcomes travellers and excludes nobody who comes with peace in their hearts. He offers alliance to our old enemies. He believes that we should not hide behind our mighty walls and glare out at the world outside our borders, with distrust in our hearts…"

His words trailed off. She touched his hand, just a gentle brush of the fingertips, then withdrew, although not so far that he could not claim her hands if he wished. "But Gimli rebuilt the Great Gate, stronger than it was before," she said, knowing that he was thinking it. "And Aragorn has ridden to war."

"Yes." Faramir scraped his hand through his hair. His wine glass trembled, drops of red liquid spilling on his tunic.

"But the enemy is already within the gates, and closing them will do nothing but trap them inside," she said: Faramir's thoughts, once again, and she merely put them into words.

"But will it comfort the people?" He looked her full in the face, and she knew that this time he wanted her to reply not just with his own thoughts, but with an answer.

"It might," she said slowly, "but I think it will fill them with fear, too. They might clamour for it, but while the gates remain open, they know that their rulers are not afraid. And they are comforted by that, because it shows them that however dark things seem, they are not as dark as they were in the days of the War, and they lived through that. Hope survived."

"Yes," said Faramir, and he took her hands in both of her own. "Yes," he said, and he smiled. "Hope survives."

* * *

All around his helmet, Ionar was wearing flowers. As he marched, he carried his spear in his right hand, as he had been drilled to do, but in his left, he held a leafy bough. His captain condoned it. His lord tolerated it. The king encouraged it, or so it was understood, although nobody had heard him say anything about it. That was when the practice had started to spread through the army like wildfire. At dawn it was just a few of them. By the time they resumed their march after lunch, almost every man-at-arms carried flowers, and even the proud riders of Rohan had flowers streaming from their helmets, entwined with the horsehair plumes.

"We look like a walking forest," said Thavron beside him, speaking out of the corner of his mouth, so his captain would not hear. "Like those stories of ents in the War."

Ionar didn't reply. There were too many stories about the War, and he didn't like hearing them. He had only been nineteen when he had marched from Minas Tirith to the Black Gate. He had gone with one of the levies from the city, under that Captain Beregond who was now with Lord Faramir in Emyn Arnen. He didn't like to talk about it. He didn't like to think about it.

"So why are you volunteering to go again?" his wife had protested, when once again, fourteen years after the first marching, he had volunteered to follow the king.

He had no answer for that; nothing he could put in words, anyway. But here he was, not far from the Black Gate, the place he still saw in dreams. But it looked different this time. Partly it was the weather, but mostly it because they had brought all these flowers and leaves from Ithilien, to make their camp into a garden, even in this most bleak of lands.

"Will they grow, I wonder?" he mused out loud, looking at the bough that he had jammed between two rocks. There was a thin dusting of soil there, brought by the wind from more fertile lands. He didn't know much about gardens, but he had a vague idea that sometimes fresh plants could grow out of cuttings of old ones, even if they didn't have roots.

In ten years, he wondered, would this place be a garden? They said that the area around the Black Gate was so poisoned that it would never be healed, but how could they be sure? For hundreds of years to come, would travellers rest here and take comfort, remembering that this was where King Elessar's army had halted on Midsummer's Day so long ago, on the way to victory in the east?

 _I hope so,_ he thought. _I really hope so.._

And that was why he had come. He had come out of duty, too, of course. He had done it because those murdering Easterlings had tried to kill the king, and he was furious about that. He had done it because a loyal man of Gondor had to do what was right, even if he was afraid of it.

But at the same time, he had come because he wanted to lay the dark dreams to rest. He wanted to pass through the devastation outside the Black Gate, not as part of an army that thought it was marching to its death, but as part of an army marching to victory.

In the future, whenever he dreamed of the Black Gate, he would see it alive with flowers and leaves.

* * *

Night came early in the Citadel, even on the longest day. The towering height of Mount Mindolluin blocked the sunset, and Gondor was further south than the Shire, and that meant that its summer days were shorter that they were in the Shire. In the city below them, people were celebrating noisily, but in the Citadel itself, the day drifted quietly into twilight, and above them, the first of the stars came out.

They were alone in the garden, Pippin and the queen. Faramir had been with them, but he had been called away, and Éowyn had gone with him. Merry had darted off to try to find them some more beer. Pippin hoped he would return soon. This was the first time he had been alone with the queen, he realised. And she was always 'the queen' to him. After the initial awkwardness, he was perfectly at ease thinking of the king as Aragorn, or even as Strider, but he could never imagine thinking of the queen just as Arwen, let alone saying it out loud.

He should probably be speaking. Finding something to talk about was not usually something he had difficulties with, but he considered and rejected several possibilities. At last, he stroked the broad leaf of a nearby plant, and said, "Your garden is very beautiful, my lady."

"I thank you, Peregrin Took." She sounded formal, as if he was a courtier giving her a gift, but then she smiled, a smile even more beautiful than the most lovely flower in her garden.

It left him speechless. He could not be speechless. "It's called the Queen's Garden, I know. Did you plant everything yourself?" Then he could have bitten his tongue off, because he had implied that the queen of Gondor crouched in the mud, her sleeves rolled up as she wrestled with plantings and prunings, getting as dirty as Sam in a Shire garden.

"I planted many of them," the queen said, "but there are gardeners who seem to think that such things are their job, and that I need to be saved from the imposition of such tasks." She smiled. "Sometimes I defy them, and sometimes I let them have their way. But I chose all the flowers, even if I did not plant them."

She had even managed to find some flowers that stayed open after the sun had left them, and even in the twilight, the garden was rich with sweet scent. He would have to ask her for cuttings to take hope to Sam. Or maybe it was merely her presence that caused them to stay wide open and blooming. They said that she made the nights of Gondor as beautiful as the day. Perhaps that was why Midsummer was such a quiet thing here in the Citadel. Why bother celebrating the longest day when your nights were even more beautiful?

Of course, Pippin remembered suddenly, Aragorn and the queen had been married on Midsummer's Day, and Aragorn was away at war. Perhaps this was nothing to do with Midsummer at all. The queen was a wife whose husband was away from home on their special day; a wife whose husband might even now be heading into deadly danger.

"He will return safely," he found himself saying, as if a fool of a hobbit like him could ever know more of the future than a daughter of Elrond! _Fool!_ he chided himself. _Fool!_

"I believe that he will," she said, and she turned upon him the full beauty and mercy of her gaze. "Thank you, Pippin." She smiled, and for a moment, it looked like the smile of a hobbit lass, delighted by a gift of flowers and a nice sweet bite to eat.

Like his own wife had looked when he had asked her to marry him.

And here he was, far away from her, not out of duty and necessity, which is what had parted Aragorn and Arwen, but because he had chosen to go. Oh, he had asked her if she minded, but in a way that made it difficult for her to say no without seeming shockingly unreasonable. Éomer had left his wife at home, of course, even though he loved her dearly, and none of his Riders would ever think to take their wives and children with them when they went off for months on end galloping across those plains of theirs. In most of the great tales of the past, the men went journeying and the women stayed at home.

"I… I would like to bring my wife here," Pippin said, "if I may. We're the only hobbits who've come here, did you know that? We're the mighty travellers, the special ones, but why shouldn't other hobbits come? I've got a little one now, did you know? Little Faramir. He's too young for such a long journey, of course." But older now. Older and changed since Pippin had last seen him, and likely to be changed again before he returned home. Half a year away. He missed them, of course, but he had still chosen to leave them behind.

"We would be delighted to welcome them here," Arwen said, still with that warm smile, but then it faded slightly, and she sighed. "It has been a poor visit for you and Merry, Pippin, with most of your friends away, and Faramir and Éowyn so busy in their absence. I have been a poor hostess. I-"

"Oh! No!" Pippin protested, interrupting the queen of Gondor. "You haven't! You've been busy doing, er, queen things, and you've got Eldarion. And we're quite happy, as happy as can be expected, what with this dreadful war. We…"

He trailed off, suddenly realising what he had been doing wrong these last few days. Had Legolas or Gimli been the ones left behind when Aragorn had gone marching away, he and Merry would have sought them out. They would have tried to spend time with them. They wouldn't have waited to be asked. 'With most of your friends away,' Arwen had said, putting herself in the role of the outsider. When wives married, they left their own homes and families and went to live with their husbands' people, with their husbands' friends forever knocking on the door and popping round for a drink or three and a bite to eat. It wasn't the wife whom those friends had come to see, and she must always know it.

Had Diamond found it difficult, Pippin suddenly wondered. Long Cleeve wasn't that far away from Tuckborough, but it was far enough, too far for her old friends to pop round for a quick chat after lunch. And how much harder must it be for someone like Arwen, an elf in a world of Men, whose old friends had gone sailing across the sea?

And here she was, stuck with a foolish Took who was happy to think of her husband as 'Strider,' but couldn't even bring himself to think of her as anything other than 'the queen.'

"We're happy enough," he said, as his heart started to beat faster as it realised the audacity of what he was about to say, "but we'll be even happier if you and Eldarion come to second breakfast with us tomorrow. It's become quite a tradition, you see. The cooks put us together a nice tray of delicacies, and they bring it to our room, but if it's a nice day, we take it outside. Legolas and Gimli shared it with us just before the army left, but we'd love it if…"

"We would love to," Arwen said, and that hobbit-lass smile was back, and it was even more beautiful than before.

And so, as night fell at the end of the longest day, Pippin and Arwen sat side by side on the grass, and talked together of this and that, and watched the stars appear in the night sky, as beautiful as the day.


	10. Masks

**Chapter ten: Masks**

From _The Many Faces of a King,_ by Túrin the Bard, F.A. 738

When a minstrel sings, he plays to his audience. When a bard stands in a hall and surveys the crowd before him, he judges whether they are hungry for happy songs, or whether they wish him to sing tales of sorrow or war. A skilled singer can manipulate the emotions of his listeners, but he is no wizard. Before he opens his mouth to sing, he reads the faces around him, and considers how they will respond to his voice.

In a way, our lords and kings are performers now. They live their lives in the public eye. Like a singer, they cannot ignore the mood of their subjects. For the people have found their voice now, and are not afraid to use it.

When Elendil came from the sea and founded his two great kingdoms, he declared that he was king. He did not ask. He and his sons took it for granted that the people would accept their rule, and dazzled by their majesty, the people did.

When Elessar came to Minas Tirith, he would not enter it uninvited. His blood had given him a claim to the throne, and his deeds had given him the right to assert this claim, but until the people had acclaimed him, he wore no crown.

It was a sign of things to come. When Elessar rode against the eastern clans, the whole affair was undertaken with an eye to what we would now call public opinion. Evidence shows that his first Steward, Faramir, considered closing the gates, but refrained from doing so not because of military considerations, but out of concern for how the people would react. The enemy agents in the city acted throughout with a view to stirring up the people. They were players acting for an audience; singers who considered the impact of their every word. They could not directly influence the king, but they could influence the mood of the people, and the king, like a bard on stage, would have to plan his actions accordingly.

The world changed when Sauron fell. In many ways, Elessar was like the kings of old returned again, but the kingdom was not the kingdom of old, and he did not have the arrogance of those born in Westernesse before its fall. He had lived amongst the people, under many names and many guises, and he understood them well. He was their king, but in many ways he was a player, too, a bard performing to the crowd. He had a strong will and he was gifted at inspiring people, making them feel just what he needed them to feel, but like any bard, he knew that there were limits that he should not pass.

* * *

He had to listen to his audience. He had to heed them. All bards do, and in this Fourth Age of the world, it is even so with kings.

"You're late," said the man who went by the name of Seregon.

"You question me?" said the other man. Seregon was not allowed to know his name.

 _I have earned that right,_ Seregon could have protested. For twelve years, he had worked this mission alone. Twelve years among enemies. Twelve years away from home. His father was dead and his brothers were dead, killed by the king of Gondor. It was unlikely that he would ever have a wife now, even if he did win his way back home. All he had was his memories of a patch of land beside the sea, bleak yet beautiful, and he had not seen it for over fourteen years.

Yes, he had earned that right, but all he said was, "It is hard for me to slip away unnoticed. They have been particularly watchful in recent days, and eager for blood, eager to jump on any hint of disloyalty."

"They suspect you?" said the other man. Despite the heat, he wore a hood, and his face was barely visible in the deep shadows of the alley. Outside, the city was a place of fierce white light: sunlight on stone. When you walked from that into even a small patch of shade, you were almost blind. But he had shown the token, and had given the right watchwords, ones Seregon had been taught so long ago.

"No." Seregon shook his head. "But I've been waiting for a long time, and that draws attention, if people see it. We should meet inside next time."

A pair of voices drew nearer, came almost close enough for Seregon to hear the words, and then faded away. The other man cocked his head, listening. As he did so, Seregon saw that he had been wounded on the cheek, from the corner of the mouth almost to the eye. Seregon had been standing for a long time in the shadowed alley, and his eyes were adapted to it. He could see the man far more clearly, he reminded himself, than the other man could see him.

"Did you do it?" he asked, when the voices had faded to nothing again. "Did you kill the captain of the Great Gate?" The tall man turned on him angrily, breath hissing in his throat, and this time Seregon _did_ say it. "I have earned the right to ask questions."

The other man was silent for a while. "Yes," he said at last. Now that Seregon had seen the wound, he could hear the effect of it in the man's speech and breathing. Any movement of his face must be hurting him badly.

"Why?" asked the man who was not called Seregon, but had gone by that name for so long that it had become the name that childhood friends called him in dreams. "The king and his army have left. That was the goal, was it not? To create such a clamour in the streets that they would race over-hastily to war? But the army's gone now, as is far out of our reach. Why…?"

He trailed off. Beneath the hood, the other man's eyes were keen. This was the sort of man that Seregon had been raised to call master. _This_ man could not have spent twelve years bowing and saluting and obeying the orders of low-born fools, as Seregon had done. That was why he had been chosen for this: because he was nobody.

"We are not the only ones," the other man said, "and the army is not out of our reach. And Minas Tirith is still of the utmost importance. Kill the captain of the Great Gate, and the fools will scream as if the very walls of their city are under threat. They will close all the gates, but that will not hinder us, thanks to you." It was grudgingly said, no true thanks for twelve years of his life. "By closing the gates, they will fan the flames of fear. As they did when they were under siege, they will call in their levies from their southern fiefdoms, and that," he said, expressionless within his hood, "can only be good."

"And when do you do it?" Seregon asked. A bell started ringing, and it meant that it was past time for him to be leaving. He lowered his voice almost to a whisper. "When do you kill the steward?"

"When you have provided us with the means," said the hooded man, his voice made expressionless by the wound on his cheek.

* * *

Crops grew around the garrison north of the Morannon. When Aragorn had ordered it built, he had also ordered trains of wagons to take topsoil from Ithilien, and the seeds of shallow-rooted plants that could cling to life even in barren places. The soldiers of the forts on the fringes of Mordor were by necessity farmers and gardeners as well as doughty warriors. With their swords they could kill, but with their spades they were slowly clawing life from the blasted lands around them. In common with all the outposts near the old borders of Mordor, their dispatches were as much about farming as they were about defence.

It was a slow process, and more seeds failed than flourished. At times, the east wind rose and snatched the fertile soil away, and even when they dug it well, mixing it with the barren earth below the ground, it was not enough to nourish plants when their roots delved deep. But already, Aragorn saw, a few wild flowers were growing, seeding themselves without the hard labour of man.

Only fourteen years, he mused. Only fourteen years since the fall of Sauron. It was such a little time compared with the long centuries of Sauron's ascendancy, but already the signs of his mastery were fading. Such a little time…

And then he imagined this nascent farmland crushed by the chariots of the clans from the east. He imagined the crops torn up and the wild flowers dying, and the land becoming bleak and desolate once more, made so not by Sauron but by men. It must not happen, he vowed. "It will not," he said, as he rode past a young honeysuckle that grew across a jagged slab of dark stone.

The captain of the garrison rode out to meet him and gave a brisk salute. They were independent men, these soldiers who served on the frontier. Few possessed much in the way of courtly manners, but their bravery and loyalty were beyond reproach. "The scouts have started to report back in, my lord," he said. "There is news."

"Then we will hear it," Aragorn said, turning towards Éomer and Gimli to include them in the report, even though the captain had spoken only to Aragorn.

The bulk of the army, on foot, had halted several miles behind them. Aragorn and Éomer had ridden ahead, escorted by a body of horsemen from both Rohan and Gondor, to hear reports and take counsel. After that, depending on what news had been brought and what decisions were taken, the army would march a few more leagues before halting for the night, but Aragorn had no intention of bringing it through the fragile farmland around the garrison. Enemy armies were not the only ones who could bring desolation in their wake. All war brought ruin to those touched by it.

"We will hear it," he said, as they followed the captain in through the gate, "and decide."

"Is it time?" asked Éomer quietly.

"It depends on what the scouts say," Aragorn said, but he had his own scouts, and he thought he knew what was coming. "But yes," he said, "I think it is."

* * *

Pippin had spent the morning playing dwarves and dragons with the future king of Gondor. If the flowers had ended up more than a little trampled, it was not the fault of the future Thain of the Shire, oh no. "Sometimes," Eldarion had said earnestly, "things get a bit broken when dragons are involved." It was Elboron (dwarf) who had made the stone vase wobble perilously on its plinth, and Pippin ("hobbit, of course") who had saved it from crashing to its doom. After that, they had ceded the field to the dragon, and retired for toast and lemon curd with the dragon's mother, and soft white rolls filled with succulent ham, roasted with cloves and honey, and leftover bacon eaten cold with the fingers.

But even dwarves and dragons needed schooling, and after lunch, the children had gone reluctantly to their lessons, and Arwen had been called away to attend to the duties of a queen. Merry and Éowyn had gone off somewhere to talk about the lore of Rohan, another of Merry's growing passions, but Pippin had shaken his head when invited to follow them. It was another beautiful day, and he wanted to be outside in it.

He wandered through the Citadel at first, but he and Merry had done quite enough of that in the last few days, thank you very much. The garden was as beautiful as ever, but then he saw a gardener hard at work in it, and he wanted to storm up to him and berate him for daring to stop Arwen from gardening whenever she wanted to. It just wasn't fair! Aragorn was king, but had to contrive and negotiate to be allowed to go out for a walk, just himself and his friends, without guards and panoply. Arwen was queen, but wasn't allowed to kneel in the mud and get her hands dirty. And when Pippin was Thain…

He let out a breath. 'When you're Thain.' They were already saying it. They had been saying it for years. When he went out with his friends and drank a little too much. When he got a little carried away and something got trampled as a result. He was over forty now, a husband and a father, and he had fought in the War of the Ring, and stared into the very face of doom. He was not the mischievous young hobbit he once had been, but he didn't feel staid and grown-up, either.

 _They_ wanted him to be. _They_ always had an opinion. _They._ The busy-bodies. The consensus. The received opinion. The same 'they' who wanted to stop Aragorn from sneaking around in a battered old cloak. The same 'they' who thought that Pippin should settle down and turn into a pillar of the community. Not that the mutterings of the busy-bodies had stopped old Bilbo one whit, of course, but Bilbo had held no title. Bilbo had been free to defy them all and wander off whereever he wished. Bilbo had…

"No," Pippin said out loud. "Not now." It was a beautiful day. He would think about this tomorrow, or maybe the day after that. He would leave the gardener unberated for now. Not that he seemed to be a very good gardener, he thought darkly, as he watched the man engage in some half-hearted snipping of things. _Sam would work three times as hard as that,_ Pippin thought, _although he'd need a ladder for those tall shrubs._

Away from the garden, then, and the fountain courtyard was out, because that was surrounded by those impassive guards, and you never knew what they were really thinking, so you worried that they might be thinking about you. _There goes that Peregrin Took. He's a Guard of the Citadel, like us, but he never seems to do any guarding, just goes swanning around having fun, while we're stuck here in this sweltering hot uniform, doing all the work._

Past the guards, then, and through the tunnel, and out through the gate into the sixth level. They let him pass, opening the gate without asking him any questions. He nodded graciously in acknowledgement. At least, he hoped it was gracious. It was only when he was well into the sixth level that anyone tried to stop him at all, and that was an officer who happened to be emerging from a guard house. He greeted Pippin with a salute, and offered him an escort for his own protection.

"For there have been too many assaults of late," he said, "and it is unwise for a friend of the king's to walk alone and unprotected. I can give you two men. They will watch you discreetly, but you will be safer with them there." His manner was that of a humble servant offering a suggestion, but his voice was that of a captain giving a command.

It was 'they' again. Once again, _they_ were getting involved. "Thank you," Pippin said, careful to keep his voice polite, "but no thank you." Gandalf had let him wander the streets alone even on the eve of the Siege, after all, and he and Bergil had explored the lower levels unwatched by anyone. But Pippin was not entirely foolish, no matter how importunate _they_ were being. "I'm not going far," he explained. "Just a little wander around the sixth level."

Of course, he remembered a few minutes later, a guardsman had been killed on the sixth level not so many days ago. That had been at night, of course, but… well, he _was_ a guardsman, and doubtless good at fighting and things like that, but he'd still been murdered.

He would tread carefully, then, and make sure he didn't go into any out of the way places. He found himself wandering past the stables, and stopped to poke his head around the door. There weren't many horses inside, but he paused to say hello to his pony, who seemed to be in the middle of a fascinating chat with Merry's pony in the stall next door. Pippin lingered a while, but when he realised that he was just going to be ignored by the ungrateful animal, he carried on.

The murder had taken place in a garden, hadn't it? He passed an ornate gateway that led to an enticing patch of green; stopped, turned, and went through it. He only went a few steps inside, though, careful to stay within sight of the street outside. He inhaled deeply, absorbing the scent of the flowers, and looked up at the birds on the branches above.

"Should you really be alone here?" said a voice.

Pippin whirled round, and saw a guardsman behind him, standing in the gateway that led back to the street. The sword at his belt was obvious, gleaming in the sun.

"Have you been sent to guard me?" Pippin asked. "I really wish-"

"No, no!" The guardsman raised his hands as if in surrender, and laughed. "I'm off duty." He walked forward, sticking out a hand for Pippin to shake. "My name's Seregon, under-captain of the sixth gate, and you're Peregrin Took, friend of the king. I'm very pleased to meet you."

* * *

"There must be some reason for it," Merry said, his pen poised above the ink well. "Again and again, we're finding words that are similar in your language and in ours." He dipped the pen in the ink, shaking off the excess drops. "But the things we use the language for are so different, of course."

"Not as different as all that," Éowyn said, as she stood in the window, looking out.

"True," Merry conceded. "No matter where they live, people have the same concerns. I see that now. We used to think of the Big People as completely different from us, but no matter where they live, and no matter how big they are, people need words for family and friends, for food and sleep, for houses and furniture and the weather and the seasons of the year. They need laughter, and words for the things that make them laugh." He gave a wry smile. "We used to think we were so special. We Brandybucks travelled more than most, but even we had little interest in anything outside our borders. The Big Folk out there… We didn't think we had anything in common with them."

"It is easy to feel that way," Éowyn said quietly, "when you see nothing but your own home."

She thought of her own childhood, and the bitter years in Meduseld when Gríma had ruled in all but name. Throughout it all, she had thought that she was the only one: the only girl who wished to learn the sword alongside her brother; the only person trapped inside, caring for a loved one; the only woman who stood in a window and longed for something more.

How many women stood in their own windows now, gazing out at the distant east, where their brothers rode to war? In Meduseld, was Lothíriel doing the same? Did the enemy clans leave their women behind, to gaze across the plains and wonder where their men had gone? In a thousand halls and houses and hovels, the same story was told. The languages were different, but the things they spoke about were the same.

"But you _are_ different," Merry said. "Not as different as we used to think, but still different. You have so many different words for horses." He gestured at his list, just one of the many pages he had compiled. "Parts of their body. Their different gaits. Things that it's never occurred to us to need words for. And _war_ ," he said. "So many words for weapons and war."

"Yes," Éowyn agreed. "War has always been important to us. We don't seek it out unnecessarily, but…"

"But you like its trappings," Merry said. "If a travelling market set up a few miles down the road, you would want to ride out to it with your spears and your armour and your horsehair helmets, twenty strong and singing. Whereas we, of course," he said, smiling, "would make a party of it. We'd pile a wagon high with baskets, all the better to stuff them full of food. We have many more words for meals than you have."

"I expect you do," Éowyn said, returning his smile.

"So that's what I mean," Merry said. "The same, but different." He laid down his pen with a sigh, then picked it up again. "I don't know if I'll ever get this tangle sorted out. Things were easier when we stayed in the Shire and never thought to wonder about what lay outside."

"Better?" Éowyn asked, already knowing what answer he would give.

"Oh no," Merry said, as she had known he would. He smiled again, and started to write.

Éowyn turned her attention to the world outside the window. A servant walked swiftly past, carrying a wooden box. Behind a low wall, a corner of the queen's garden was visible, all white blossom and pale green leaves. A wisp of cloud passed across the sun, doing little to lessen the brightness of the day.

Yes, she thought, in a thousand halls and houses and hovels, the same story was told. But she was the wife of the Steward of Gondor, and a daughter of queens. Her husband consulted her on matters that could affect the whole kingdom. Custom wanted to banish her to Emyn Arnen, but she had the luxury of being able to defy custom, if she was prepared to accept the consequences. She was in Gondor by choice, and it was a choice she did not regret.

The scratching of Merry's pen grew slower, and soon stopped altogether. "All your words for war…" Merry said. "Should I be wearing a sword? I brought one, you know," he said before Éowyn could muster a reply. "It's never seemed quite right to wear one at home, although we did for a little while when we first got home, just Pippin and me. As we rode south, I thought I might start wearing it again when we got to places where wearing a sword is normal in day-to-day living, but it's never seemed quite right."

Éowyn had not worn a sword since the Pelennor. Her sword had shattered after she had struck the Witch King, of course, but she had taken another from the treasuries of Meduseld on the eve of her uncle's funeral, and had kept it in his memory ever since. It lived in a chest in Emyn Arnen, and at times she would draw it out and clean at it, turning it this way and that in the sunlight. When she came to Minas Tirith, the sword came with her, secret, untouched, hidden.

"We went down into the city a few days ago," Merry said, "and even then we didn't wear them, because we were trying not to draw any attention to ourselves. But then Captain Daerion got attacked, and we tried to chase down his attacker, but what could we have done if we'd caught him? We just had eating knives. Should I wear a sword? I've been looking around. The guards wear them, of course, and the lords, but most people don't."

And no women, of course.

"I think you should do whatever makes you feel comfortable," Éowyn said. "Nobody will look askance at you if you wear one, but neither will they look askance at you if you go out without one. Many people wear swords here, even in peace time. If you wear one, it will occasion no talk." A bell sounded outside, marking the changing of a watch. "But in these uncertain times of ours," she said, "I think…" She turned her back to the window, facing him with the glass behind her. "It is better to be ready. It is better to be safe."

She had her sword with her still, safe in the chest at the foot of her bed.

* * *

The small room was too hot, with no windows to let in the breeze. Éomer wiped his brow with the back of his hand, and took a long draught of the ice cold water, brought from the cellar deep below ground.

"Are you sure?" he asked. He had asked it before, of course. "Are you sure this is the only way?"

"I believe so," said Aragorn.

Éomer had no idea what time it was, only that had been closeted in here for hours while scouts brought in their reports. A large map of the Brown Lands lay on the table, marked with gaming counters to show the position of the armies. _Here_ was the where the enemy army had last been sighted, and _here_ was where Aragorn thought it would have reached since then. Forces of enemy horsemen were ranging _here_ and _here_. _Here_ and _here_ were the fallen outposts, and _here_ and _here_ were where enemy scouts had been captured and kept from seeing the scale of the army that faced them.

"The refugees are still here," Aragorn said. "I hope to stop the clans before they come this far, but it will be safer for them to leave. We will spare an escort to take them south into Ithilien." He placed his hand on the map, covering the whole of northern Ithilien with the spread of his fingers.

"And where shall the army go?" Éomer asked. He knew what he wanted to do, and that was to take his thirty men and hunt down the enemies who had sacked the outposts. He had glimpsed the refugees on the way in, and seen how bleak and wan they were, their eyes following Aragorn as they begged him silently to avenge them.

Had Éomer not been lord of his people, he might have done it. When he had been just a marshal of the Riddermark, he could take his éored and ride out against any foes that presented themselves. As a king, bound by the oath of Eorl, he had to consider the wider needs of Gondor's war.

Even so, he might have argued the need for such an act, had he just been a friend and ally of Gondor's king. His men were his own. He had the right to use them how he wished, and he had the right to argue with Aragorn about tactics. Let Aragorn lead the army, while Éomer and his men did what they had been trained to do from childhood: bring death to enemies upon the open plain.

But he could not. He could not. The time had come, and everything was about to change.

"Avoid the outposts," Aragorn said, "because they will expect us to go there. Although we have captured several of their scouts and spies, it is too much to hope that they are entirely ignorant of our approach. Even if they are, they will expect a response to their aggression. They know we are coming."

"So we will have to go where they least expect us to go," Gimli said, "and make sure that anyone who sees us is not allowed to escape and tell the tale."

"If possible," Aragorn said. His hands were on the empty space now, the barren lands on the map where no counters sat.

The lands through which he was planning to travel alone, or as near to alone as made no difference.

"It will not be easy," Aragorn said. "The land is too bleak to entirely hide an army. You will have to assume that they know more of your doings than you would wish them to."

"Including the fact that you have left us and headed off alone." There was a harshness to Gimli's voice. He wished that he was going too, of course.

"It would be good if that remained hidden for as long as possible," Aragorn said. "As well as spies watching us, I fear we may have spies amongst us. They would not let us ride without one, surely."

"Will the lords of Gondor accept orders from Éomer?" Gimli wondered.

"He is a king," Aragorn said, and there was no doubt in his voice at all as he sat there at the map table, looking every inch the king himself. "He is a king and a commander of renown."

They were silent again. Éomer wiped the sweat from his brow, and watched the beads of liquid that dripped across his glass. He had commanded forces several thousand strong, but they were riders from the Riddermark, and he was their lord by right. Tactics he knew, and he could make a decision in the midst of battle, and do so quickly, without the hesitation that could prove fatal. _But I do not know…_ he thought, then stopped himself, curling his hand into a fist.

He would do it, of course, and he would do it well.

He had to.

* * *

Pippin and his new friend had spent a pleasant hour or two in the sunshine. An under-captain of the watch, it turned out, had Contacts, and Contacts meant that you could get very fine beer for a reduced price, and drink it on a rooftop garden overlooking a maze of narrow streets somewhere near the Houses of Healing. "We used to come here a lot when we were off duty," Seregon said, looking sadly into his half-drunk beer. "Not so much in recent days, of course."

"Of course," said Pippin, thinking that he was talking about the war. Then he remembered that the murdered guard had been assigned to the sixth gate, which was where Seregon himself was assigned. "Were you…?" He almost didn't ask it, but you couldn't always be tactful when you needed answers. Merry and Pippin had headed into the city to look for clues that would help uncover the enemy agents. He couldn't forget the city's need, even as he sat in the sun drinking beer. "Were you friends with him?" he asked. "With the man who died?"

"I was," Seregon said gruffly. "It's hit us all hard. There's nothing as close as the bond between men who serve together."

"I'm sorry." A bird landed near Pippin's feet, pecking at stray fallen crumbs. Then one of the other drinkers gave a loud bark of laughter, and the bird flew away, startled. "Did you-?"

"I was off duty when it happened," Seregon said harshly. "Went to bed as normal. Got up, had breakfast, and found out that he was dead. I don't want to talk about it."

"No," Pippin said. "Of course." He tried to take another mouthful, but his beer appeared to have disappeared while they were talking. Best not have another, he thought. He didn't want to say anything stupid.

"So how are they taking it in the Citadel?" Seregon asked. "The attack on the king, and now everything else?"

Best think before answering that, too. Pippin mimed taking another drink, and leaned sideways to look down from the rooftop vantage point. A small patch of green was visible between two tall buildings. Someone was walking there, moving slowly. Was that the garden of the Houses of Healing?

Seregon cleared his throat. Pippin turned his attention back to him. "As well as can be expected," he said. He reached out, plucking a tendril of the plant that had coiled itself around the railings. "What's this? We don't have it at home."

"Neither do we." Seregon's voice was harsh again. Of course, Pippin reminded himself, he'd recently suffered a loss, and a fool of a Took had tried to make him talk about it. It was almost enough to make him answer Seregon's question more fully, but he resisted the urge. Seregon was an under-captain of the city watch and therefore an honest and loyal man, but Pippin was a friend of the king and queen, and he knew full well that Aragorn and Faramir had secrets: secrets that a humble guardsman was not to know. This was altogether too public a place. The people at the other tables seemed entirely absorbed in their own conversations, but who could tell what they were really listening to?

"Well…" said Pippin, as he decided that he would talk to Seregon about the Shire and herblore and his ancestors, and harmless things like that. "It's a bit like bindweed, but not quite. That's a nasty little name for what is rather a pretty plant. I remember…"

"Shall we go?" Seregon said, pushing his chair back. "I need to report back for duty soon, but if you like flowers, we can head back to the guardhouse by a sneaky little back way. It's a bit longer, but it goes through a hidden rock garden. You'll like that."

"Short cuts make long delays," Pippin said, laughing. "I wonder what long cuts make?" He thought he might refuse the offer, though, pleading a suddenly-remembered appointment in the Citadel. He didn't want to have to pretend to be fascinated by flowers for hours on end. Besides… Well, you couldn't be too careful; that was the lesson that the last two weeks had taught.

They headed down the narrow outdoor stairs, Pippin going first, and Seregon close behind him, closer than Pippin might have liked. Men were such big, clumsy things. What if he fell?

But it was Pippin who almost caused the accident, stopping abruptly when they reached the balcony below. Seregon bumped into him from behind, steadying himself only by grabbing Pippin's shoulder hard enough to hurt.

"Look!" Pippin whispered, gesturing with his chin to the street below. "I said I didn't need an escort, but I can see two guards over there. Oh, they've made themselves nice and discreet, but is it a coincidence that they happen to be loitering just across the way from the place I went to have a drink? It's too much!"

"Yes," Seregon agreed. "Yes, it is."

Perhaps in response to their near accident, Seregon kept his distance on the next flight of stairs, but once they were back on ground level, he came close again, touching Pippin on the arm. "If you find yourself getting bored up there in the Citadel and in need of a drinking companion," he said, "you know where to find me."

"Yes," Pippin said. "I do. And I owe you a drink. I won't forget that. We Tooks pay our debts. Most of the time, anyway," honesty made him add, as he remembered the various little knickknacks he had borrowed over the years and forgotten to return.

"Yes," said Seregon. "So do we."

* * *

Beyond the Dead Marshes, the light was fading. The army was three leagues away, and if things went well, Aragorn would not see it again for many days.

And if things went badly…? He had considered that, of course.

"Legolas isn't back yet," Gimli pointed out, speaking quietly, because the window was open a crack, bringing with it the smell of honeysuckle. "You should wait until…"

"No." Aragorn shook his head. "Legolas will come. Tonight, after dark, he said."

Legolas's arrival was the final piece of the puzzle. He was the last scout to report in. From his tidings, Aragorn would make his final decision on which route to take. He doubted it would change much. He had thought about this for days, and could never escape the conclusion that this was their only chance of ending this affair the way it had to end.

"I wish…!" Gimli cried. He bit it back, lowering his voice to a whisper. "It should be the three of us. The Three Hunters; they still call us that in the songs of Rohan."

"It won't even be the two of us," Aragorn said. Legolas had his own part to play, but he and Aragorn would not be travelling together. Legolas and his companions would be close enough that if the worst happened, they would hear of it, but that was all.

Only one companion would travel with Aragorn, and it could not be Gimli. Gimli was tireless, and a doughty warrior, but stealth was what was needed now.

"What will they say," Gimli asked, "when it slips out that we let you go?"

"Let me?" Aragorn said. "Who is the king here?" Then he relaxed with a smile, owning that Gimli had the right of it. In some ways, a king was less free than the lowliest man-at-arms. He was free to make his own decisions, true, but for every decision, he had to consider how it would affect not just himself and his family, which any man had to consider, but the kingdom as a whole. Everywhere he went, there were people with opinions on what he should do and where he should go and how he should behave.

"It is a shocking risk: that's what they will say." Gimli stood his ground. "You are heading off alone into enemy territory. If glimpsed, you could be shot as a spy. If captured, you could be killed. It is a foolish act. How can you risk the whole of Gondor so?" Gimli's voice was rising again. "That is what they will say," he finished, quiet but defiant. "I know these people, and that is what they'll say."

"For nearly seventy years, I went into worse dangers." Aragorn placed a hand on Gimli's arm. His anger came from fear for his friends, Aragorn knew, and bitterness at being left behind. "I could have hidden in Rivendell and done nothing at all, concerned only with protecting the bloodline of Isildur. I did not. I served in Rohan and Gondor and beyond. I travelled into Mordor itself. I hunted Gollum alone. Alone, I was sometimes wounded, occasionally badly so. More than once, I came only a hair's breadth from death."

"But you weren't king then," Gimli protested.

"No," Aragorn agreed, "and had I died then, I would never have become so. Gondor would have remained under the rule of the stewards, or fallen, if that rule had failed. I would not have married. I would have no heir. The kingdoms of the west would have been just a fading memory told by slaves who sobbed beneath the yoke of Sauron. Some of this I knew, or feared, but I still took those risks. I fought and I travelled and I led from the front, because to do otherwise was wrong."

"But…!" Gimli protested. _I want to come with you!_ his eyes said.

"I have undertaken many such ventures as this," Aragorn said gently, "when there was nobody there to question the need. What has changed since those times?" Aragorn smiled. "Sauron has fallen, and Gondor and Arnor are restored. There is an heir to the throne, and a wise queen and a noble Steward who will govern well until he comes of age. I owe it to my people not to risk myself unnecessarily. I accept those strictures for the most part, and let others fight battles that once I would have fought myself. But this…" He shook his head. "This is not unnecessary. This is essential, and it is a thing that I alone can do. You know this, Gimli."

Gimli was silent for a very long time. He closed his eyes. "Yes," he said quietly. "Yes."

"But I have your gift to keep me safe," Aragorn said, "and the cloak of Lothlórien."

"And Legolas," Gimli said gruffly, "watching from afar with those keen eyes of his." He grabbed Aragorn's arm, clasping it in both of his own. "Stay safe. Come back."

"I will," Aragorn promised, and hoped that it was true.

 _I will._


	11. Travellers in the Night

**Chapter eleven: Travellers in the Night**

From _Finding Their Voice,_ by Oswine Odmundson, F.A. 610

History is not just one story. History is a thousand stories that come together to make a whole. Where one person's story ends, another begins. Sometimes they intertwine like yarn on a loom, and weave a solid cloth. Sometimes they pass each other like travellers in the night. Drawn by the light, they share a few words together, and then go their separate ways.

"When I was eight," writes a young girl of Gondor, "my father was killed by the clans from the east. I was there, they tell me, but I can't remember it. My uncle fled with me and took me to the nearest garrison. I can't remember that, either. I can't remember anything, any of the bad things. I can't remember arriving. I can't remember waiting to be rescued, never knowing if the clans were going to find us again. I can't even remember the king arriving, although for years afterwards, my uncle wouldn't stop talking about how the king had spoken to him, asking his opinion of the situation in the east. Something began to heal inside my uncle then, something that had been broken. I can see that now. I didn't then, of course. At least I don't think I did. I can't remember anything.

"But I remember the men-at-arms who escorted us back through Ithilien. I remember one of them in particular. He was only seventeen, but of course he seemed so much older to me then, because I was just a child. I thought he was very handsome.

"Ten years later, when I saw him again, I thought he was even more handsome still. We've been married now for forty years. Since our wedding, I've never left Lossarnach. I've never returned to Minas Tirith or Osgiliath. I've never seen Ithilien again. I've never gone back to the east. I've never seen the king or the queen or the Steward, except for that one glimpse of the king, the glimpse that I can't remember.

"I was just a little girl, nobody important, and he was just a humble man-at-arms, and his name will never be mentioned in the songs that they sing of those times. But when I look back on those dark days, he is all I remember. This was where our long story began, so many years ago."

Just one story out of many. Just one story out of the hundreds that were written down for us, and the tens of thousands that are now lost to us.

Elessar took his army into the Brown Lands, and in Minas Tirith, Faramir strove to find the agents who aimed to wreak havoc in the city. With every decision that they made, other stories were born and other stories died. Friendships were formed in the army, some of which lasted until death, and changed those friends' lives forever. In the tense fear of the city, sometimes people found each other, and sometimes they tore themselves apart, as fear made them say unforgiveable things. Stories starting, stories ending; stories coming together, stories breaking apart.

With every word he speaks, a king can change the lives of those around him, but we all have that power. With our words and deeds, we can change the stories of those whose paths cross ours. In our own small way, we are all kings.

* * *

In the dawn mist, the whole world was grey. Nothing moved in it. There was no wind, and there were no trees, only stunted shrubs. Somewhere, not too far away, a few scant birds were singing, but Mablung could not see them. His clothes were damp with dew, and his feet were cold. Although they were healed, his old wounds ached.

He was waiting. As night melted slowly into dawn, he waited for the one who would come. He had slept little, just jagged snatches of sleep, shot through with vivid dreams of failure and death. Now that he was awake, reality felt less real than the dreams.

When the figure appeared in the mist, he was slow to see it, even though he was waiting for it. At first it was just a faint hint of movement, a darker shadow against the grey. As Mablung watched, the shadow took form, becoming not one but two distinct figures, one tall and one short.

 _The king!_ Mablung thought. He still could not entirely believe it. The king, and by the look of it, Lord Gimli alongside him. Mablung stood up, wincing at the stiffness of muscles that had gone too long unused. He took a step forward, then went down on his knees and bowed his head, waiting.

"Mablung," the king said, and Mablung looked up to see him wrapped in a grey cloak and wreathed in a mist that was scarcely less grey. "Don't kneel," he said, sounding more like a companion than a king. "You can't do that where we're going."

"No, my lord," Mablung agreed, forcing himself to stand.

He had served under Faramir, son of the ruling Steward of Gondor. Before the eyes of the steward, he had bowed and spoken humbly to his captain and called him lord. Side by side in a ditch in Ithilien, assailed by orcs, there had been no time for such considerations. Once Mablung had hurled himself at Faramir bodily, striking him down, pinning him there as a flight of arrows hissed overhead. There had been no ceremony then, and in many situations like it.

But this was the king…! It was no different, he tried to tell himself. Mablung was a Ranger of Ithilien and a soldier of Gondor, and he would do his duty. If his duty was to huddle side by side with his king in the dirt, and give no outward hint of the gulf in rank between them, then so be it. He could do it. He had to.

"So you're Mablung," Lord Gimli said. "I remember you now. You brought us news of the ambush that awaited us on the way to the Black Gate. They say you're a good scout, one of the best. They say you know this land better than most."

"Better than anyone," the king said with a smile.

 _Better than anyone who still lives,_ Mablung thought, remembering his most recent captain, who lay dead not so many leagues from here. Better than the enemy? He had always liked to think so. Now more than ever he needed it to be true. The king's life could depend on his knowledge and his skill.

"Then I have a gift for you," Gimli said, "from your king's old travelling companion to his new one." As he spoke, he began to unfasten the grey cloak around his shoulders, opening its leaf-shaped brooch. "It was given to me by the fairest lady who ever dwelled within these lands. She has left us now," he said, a look of sorrow passing across his face.

 _Then do not give it to me,_ Mablung wanted to say, but he kept his peace.

"Nay, it is but a loan," Gimli said, perhaps reading more from Mablung's expression than Mablung would have liked. "You're taller than me, of course, but I'm bulky across the shoulders. It won't reach the ground on you, but it was made in Lothlórien, and will hide you better than any rag made by Men. Take it," he urged. "You can give it back to me when you return." The words were for Mablung, but he glanced at the king as he said them.

 _When you return._

Mablung took the cloak, and mustered the appropriate thanks: courtly words dimly remembered from those days when he had lived in a hall of stone. He could not refuse it, not now. This was a task demanding absolute stealth. Mablung could not let his king down. He could not.

He had been offered the chance to refuse, of course. The night before, the king had summoned him and told him what was being asked of him. It was a request only, softly given. His recent wounds were gently offered as a reason for refusal. But how could he refuse? He was a loyal man of Gondor, and a request from his king had the force of a command from any other man. _I will not fail him,_ he vowed.

He fastened the cloak at his throat, and ran his fingers down the smooth fabric. "Take care of it," Gimli said gruffly. Then Gimli turned to the king, and if words were spoken between them, Mablung did not hear them. Wrapped in his borrowed cloak, he walked away, and let the two friends make their farewells, quiet amidst the morning mist.

* * *

The sword was wrapped in cloth, its glory hidden by soft fabric. Éomer teased its wrappings open, parting them just enough to glimpse the tracery of leaves on its scabbard. He touched it, brushing his fingertips across those leaves, his touch as soft as a whisper. Then he wrapped it again, and took a step back.

Andúril. The sword of Elendil, reforged for a new age of the world. His own sword, Gúthwinë, was a noble sword with a good lineage. It had been his father's before him, and it would, he hoped, be borne by many kings after him, whether they wore it in peace or in war. In war, he would have hoped as a child, for what boy of the Mark did not dream of great deeds on the field of battle? In peace, he hoped now, for he was old enough to hope for such things in the years to come. A good sword, then, and he hoped that he was worthy of it.

But Andúril was another thing entirely. As Narsil, it had been forged in the First Age of the world, and it had harmed Sauron himself. Reforged, the very hint of its coming had brought hope to the beleaguered forces of Gondor. The Riddermark had its heirlooms and its treasures, but Andúril came straight out of the legends of the Elder Days.

And Aragorn had entrusted it to Éomer. "I cannot take it with me," he had said, as dusk had deepened around him the night before. "I cannot risk it being taken."

"But it will only be taken if you are taken," Éomer had protested. _And you must not be taken,_ he had thought.

"Yes," Aragorn had agreed, "but if I am discovered, there are ways open to me: ways that would not be open to me if I carried such a sword."

So Éomer had the sword. Éomer would sleep in Aragorn's tent. He could not pretend to be Aragorn himself, of course, but the men-at-arms would see their king's tent erected every night, and would see that a light burned within it. It was better thus, said Aragorn.

Éomer would command the army in his absence. He would receive the reports of the scouts, and make decisions, and issue orders to captains who owed no allegiance to any lord of the Riddermark, even if that lord was a king.

He would not believe himself unworthy. The Mark was an independent kingdom because long ago, a steward of Gondor had allowed it to be so. Aragorn had renewed that promise, and Éomer had renewed the oath of Eorl. The king of the Mark was a lesser king than the king of Gondor, but he was still a king. He had ridden through Ithilien with Aragorn as an ally, not as a vassal. He had led his men to war, and led them well.

But he would not touch the sword of Elendil. Just a light touch of the scabbard, and then he wrapped it again, and swore to keep it wrapped until Aragorn came back from it.

Then, without looking back at it, he strode out of the tent, ready to face the day ahead.

* * *

He was free, they told him, free to go, but where could he go?

Home? But what was home? Home was a bleak room dominated by his father's old loom, dusty with disuse. It was a bed he hadn't slept in for weeks. It was a loft where a man had lived for days without his knowledge, with murder in his heart. It was a place that had been tramped through by guards and soldiers, who had studied every inch of it, looking for clues. All the detritus of his broken life had been rifled through and judged.

What had they said about him? Had they laughed at the half-finished weaving, at the empty bottles, at the letters he had written to Rosseth, but never sent? Had they spat on the floor, cursing his name? Did they deride him? Did they blame him? Did they hate him?

Of course they hated him. "It wasn't me," he said, but there was nobody here to hear him. He had been cast out of the Houses of Healing. The soft-handed healers said that he was healed. The hard-faced guards didn't want to let him go, but the command had come from above. "Why?" he asked, but he was alone. Even the streets seemed to have emptied for him, just blank windows in solid walls of stone. "Why?" It was a cracked whisper, little more than a breath.

And then someone was there, after all; soft footsteps on the street behind him. It was that man: Mínir, he called himself. He had come several times. Lainor wished he wouldn't, but yesterday, by sunset, he hadn't come at all, and Lainor had kept his candles burning late into the night, refusing to have them snuffed out until it was fully dark outside and all the lights in other houses had gone out.

"Why?" Lainor asked, not meaning to, but unable to stop himself. "Why did they let me go?"

"Because you're healed," Mínir said, not quite looking at him.

 _Healed,_ Lainor thought. Too late to claim that he couldn't remember. If people told him things today, if people hurled abuse at him tomorrow, he would remember it. No hiding now, not from the blame. "But that wasn't the only reason they were keeping me there," he said. "If they've freed me, it must be because they know I wasn't involved. They've got proof of it? They've found someone else?"

"I don't know," said Mínir, after too long a pause. He had come on the king's business; wasn't that what he'd said when he'd coming knocking on Lainor's door a distant lifetime ago? "I never thought you were involved. I argued as much to people who matter. And they were inclined to believe me, I think, because…" He broke off; touched Lainor's arm. "What are you going to do now? Where are you going to go?"

He couldn't go home. It was no real home at all, and hadn't been for months. And everybody would know: the neighbours, the people in the streets, the traders in the market, _everybody_. They would know. They would point. They would talk. They would hate.

"Away," he murmured, still in that broken whisper. A new start. Osgiliath was too close, but there were other towns. He would find a place where they nobody knew the name of the man who had almost killed the king through his negligence. He would start to weave again. He would be _useful_ , and lose himself in making, not in wine. He would tell them lies: lies about where he had come from, and lies about what he had done. He would forget. He would forget.

"Don't try to run away," Mínir said gently.

Lainor clenched his fist, and for a brief, fleeting moment, might have hit him. "What do you know about it?" he shouted, but then he took a great rasping breath, and another, and another. "Why shouldn't I? It's what I do. It's what all cowards do."

"You-" Mínir began, but Lainor spoke over him, their words weaving through each other's like the jagged, malformed cloth that sat gathering dust on his loom. "If I stay… If I go home, back to _that place_ …" Another breath, shuddering now, almost a sob. ("…a coward," Mínir was saying.)"I'd start drinking again. I'd drown myself in drink and forgetfulness, and I'd never leave. And that's running away, too. Isn't it?"

Mínir looked away for a moment, closing his eyes. "Yes," he said, at last. "But if you stay…" He shook his head. "Anything I can say will sound like platitudes. I'm not good at this. I wish…" He sighed, clearly angry with himself. "If you want to talk…," he said. "If you want to find me… There's a small tavern in an alley behind Cordwainers' Street. Talk to the landlord there. He knows how to find me."

"And how will you find me after that?" Lainor asked, because he couldn't go home again, he _couldn't._

"I will find you," Mínir merely said.

* * *

It was not like it used to be, in the days when he was Strider the Ranger. It would never be like that again.

There were few birds here, and the plants were not the plants of the north. He was not alone. Then, he had slept outside for months, sometimes for years. He had never forgotten who he was or the goal he was aiming for, but there were times when that was far in the back of his mind. There were times in the north when he almost became Strider, just a common Ranger who crept around slaying monsters in the dark. There were times in the east and the south when only the journey mattered. He was a traveller and a hunter, and everything else was far away: not forgotten, never that, but far from the forefront of his mind.

It could never be forgotten now. If he put on his old clothes and went wandering through hidden lanes and meadows, he could never forget the kingdom that waited on his word. He hoped that his crown would not change him so much that he could not enjoy a quiet pipe with some irreverent hobbits, but he could never be Strider again. He was king of Gondor and Arnor, and that could not be forgotten. People fooled themselves if they said that great changes in their circumstances did not change them inside. He was different now. He could put on his old clothes for a while, but he could never go back. He did not _want_ to go back, but…

Why was he here? Because it was the only way to end this mess. He believed that sincerely. He still believed it. It was a gamble, true, but the alternatives were worse.

But yet… He sighed, looking up at the stars, so little different from the stars of the north; the stars he still thought of as the stars of home. Here, in the dark watches of the night, he could not escape the fear that he had been so quick to choose this path because part of him wanted to be Strider again, anonymous in the dark.

Something cried out in the darkness. His head snapped up. Some night-hunting bird of prey, he thought, its cry sparking memories from his time spent travelling in the lands east of Mirkwood. But such a cry could be a signal, of course, issuing from a human mouth. He gripped his sword, then saw the shape of a bird flying overhead. The cry was repeated, louder this time, as the bird passed into the west.

Mablung stirred beside him. "Wh-?" he asked, mumbling, not really awake.

"All is well," Aragorn told him quietly. "Go to sleep."

Mablung had not wanted to sleep when they had finally settled down for the night after their long day on foot. Aragorn did not know what troubled Mablung more: the thought of being on watch while his king slept beside him, or the thought of settling down to sleep while his king stayed awake, watching. But his disquiet had been shown itself only in the look in his eyes, in the tightening of his jaw, in a slight clenching and unclenching of his hands, something he had probably been unaware of. He had made no protest. And, like the Ranger that he was, he had fallen asleep quickly when his time to sleep had come.

But not deeply, and not without dreams.

 _Was I right to bring him?_ Aragorn wondered, not for the first time. He had framed it as a request, of course, but who would choose to refuse a request from their king? That was why hobbits were so refreshing, of course, because they, at least, sometimes spoke the word 'no' to him. But Mablung had begged him to be allowed to come with the army. As one of the few survivors of the slaughter of the outposts, he had a stake in the affair. Aragorn could not allow that to sway his decision, of course. This was too important for sentiment. Aragorn had needed someone who knew the terrain, and Mablung was the best choice.

Aragorn stood up, stretching his legs. Mablung was twitching again, sinking into a dream that gave him no peace.

 _Was I right?_ he thought, but no, it was _necessary_. And Mablung was doing well. He was a Ranger of Ithilien, almost as skilled as any Ranger of the north. He did his duty. He had been ordered not to kneel and bow, and after that first time, he had not done so. At the start, he had called Aragorn 'lord,' until Aragorn had gently pointed out that that, too, was something that could not be done in the wilds.

"What can I call you?" Mablung had asked, only just biting back the 'lord' that he wanted to append to the question. "I can't…" _Can't call you nothing,_ his eyes said. _Can't speak to you as if you're just any other man._

Some things could not be forgotten. Even in the wilds, it was not like it used to be. Some things could never be forgotten.

It would not be fair to Mablung to ask him to call Aragorn by name. A nickname, like Strider, or an assumed name, like Thorongil, would be just as hard for him. However much Aragorn might wish it so, this was not Halbarad or any of his companions of the past. "Faramir was your captain," he had said, "and always will be, I think, but you have used the word 'captain' for other men since. Use it for me, if you wish, or 'sir' if you prefer."

"Yes," Mablung had said, "ca- captain. Sir. Yes."

"And don't obey without question," Aragorn had told him, deliberately changing his voice and accent, making it suit his travel strained clothes. "You're here as my guide. Contradict me. Make suggestions. We will plan our course together."

"Yes, sir," Mablung had managed. "Yes." And he had done so, for the most part; awkwardly at first, but settling into it as the day had proceeded.

 _Was I right to bring him?_ Aragorn asked himself again, and decided that the answer was yes.

Was he right to come himself?

That was a question that still had no answer.

* * *

There were times when Mínir felt like a spider at the heart of a web.

"Nothing to report," muttered the boy who jostled into him in a crowded street. "No sightings," said the trader who stood at the street corner, selling cold pasties covered with toasted cheese. Mínir took all the reports and wove them together. Some he passed on through his usual channels. Some he kept to himself, for there was nothing useful in them, only failure.

It was best when he was the one out searching, although that only made the failure worse, when he reached the end of a long night and had nothing to show for all the hours of searching and listening. When he had started this game, back before the king had found him, he had always worked alone. Now he had a team below him, and a far larger roster of informants and contacts who could be called upon to seek information in return for coin.

He had always trusted them. Despite his line of work, he had come to believe that most people were essentially good at heart. His job was to root out those few who weren't. Sauron was gone, and the evils that remained in the world were not dark spirits or foul orcs, but the crimes of petty men. It fell to petty men like Mínir to combat them, so the king could create the golden age that must surely lie ahead. After their sufferings in the War and the sight of true evil, most people longed for that golden age, too, or so he had come to believe.

Now he had no idea if he could trust any of them. Some had refused all payment when they heard that he was trying to track down the conspirators behind the attempted assassination of the king. Those he was inclined to trust. But maybe that's why they'd done it: to fool him into thinking that they were loyal. Those who still insisted on payment he was inclined not to trust at all. But maybe…

He shook his head, rubbing his aching eyes. It was mid-morning. He had been up all night. Easier when he had worked alone. Easier when he'd just tracked down missing people and the lost little treasures of the small folk of Minas Tirith. Easier when it hadn't mattered.

But it had mattered, of course. Every errant husband, every lost son, mattered to those left behind. Every tiny treasure, even if it would sell for barely a copper piece at the market, mattered to those who had lost them.

 _I'm tired,_ he thought. _Oh, but I'm so tired of this._

He was no longer free to move through the city entirely unknown. The more important his job became, the less free he was to do it. In ten years time, in twenty years, where would he be? Sitting behind a desk in an office, receiving reports from those who were still free to go wherever they wished?

Or perhaps he would be forgotten, shamed and forgotten, because almost two weeks had passed, and he still had no real answers. Gondor was at war, and there were enemies in the city, and he couldn't find them.

His pasty was finished: the pasty he hadn't really wanted in the first place. He brushed the crumbs from his clothes, and licked the last of the grease from his fingers. He started to walk, and for once, he had no clear idea where he was going. He wasn't even following the trail of a rumour, or walking somewhere in particular because he had a hunch that something might be found there.

Through the fringes of a new garden. Along an avenue of new trees, between two tall walls of stone. He yawned as he walked, covering his mouth with his hand. His fingers still smelled of cheese and mild spices. He walked on, as time passed. At first he listened intently to snatches of conversation as he passed them, but after a while they blurred into just noise.

At last he found himself in a public square on the third level. He had met informants here before, and once he had spotted a fugitive, a man who had murdered his wife, hiding away in a festival crowd. He made his way to the stone bench beside the fountain. A woman was sitting on the far end of it, but she got up and walked away when he sat down.

 _Do I look that bad?_ he thought. To track down people who lived in the shadows, he had to live in the shadows himself. Was he becoming like the men he was hunting: a man whom honest folk shunned?

He was slow to notice that he was not alone. "Nothing yet," said the man who had sat down beside him. "He spent the night in an inn, and now he's in a garden, just sitting there. He hasn't spoken to anyone or sent any letters."

Lainor, the weaver. Another man Mínir had lied to. Because Lainor had been freed for a reason. Although they were fairly sure he that he had known nothing of the plot to kill the king, enough doubt remained. He would be freed, but he would be followed: another job that Mínir couldn't do himself; another job that he had no desire to do himself. Everyone Lainor made contact with, everyone he spoke to, would be marked and noted.

Another hour passed. Mínir moved on: another square, another level. The man who found him here was fizzing with excitement, and he grabbed Mínir's arm hard enough to hurt. "I saw him!" he hissed. He sat down, barely perching there, eager to be gone. "A man with a wound on his cheek, like you told me to look for."

And with that it was gone: the lethargy, the weariness, the doubt; all gone. "Where?" he asked, and, "Did he see you?"

It was a simple enough tale: a chance sighting of a scarred man who was walking with his head down in a shadowed alley between two rows of houses. A gap between the buildings had meant that for a brief moment, sunlight had fallen upon his face, and that happened to coincide with Mínir's man glancing out from a window, searching for something else entirely.

"I saw where he went," his informant said. "I've got my brother watching it, to make sure he doesn't come out. I know, I know," he said, raising his hands. "He knows not to do anything stupid like challenging him. I came to get you, like you said."

"You did well," Mínir said, rising to his feet. It was all gone, all of it gone. It was _good,_ this work that he did. It was good.

His hand went to the pouch at his side, where he kept the token that the king had given him. If he had important news, the king had told him, he wasn't to entrust it to anyone but Lord Faramir himself. He had to go to the sixth gate and ask for Captain Celagon, the captain of the city watch, and Captain Celagon would summon Lord Faramir himself to hear what Mínir had found.

It was time, Mínir thought. At last, after all those weary, frustrating days, the time had come.

* * *

Hasad was very bad now, barely conscious in his chariot. He had protested weakly when Kabil had found a charioteer for him, but had lacked the strength to resist very much.

"They must come," Hasad kept on mumbling, his lips moving ceaselessly as he sat propped up against his chariot's side. "They must. Then we can…"

Kabil thought that he should be in command now, because Hasad was his brother. Everyone else had different ideas, of course. "Are we degenerate _westerners_ ," they asked, "who pass lordship from father to son, from brother to brother, as if it's nothing more than a pretty trinket?" The king of Gondor, or so they said, was only king because thousands of years ago, one of his forefathers had been king. It was a ridiculous system. Lordship should be bestowed upon the one who was worthy of it, and was kept by him only for as long as he could defend his right to it.

"No," he said, "of course we aren't." Westerners, it was said, were sometimes landed with a king who was just a child, or stuck with an fading old man, too weak to sit on a horse or hold a sword. "But Hasad is still lord," he said, "by merit and by acclamation. He speaks to me. My commands are his."

It was not a lie. Hasad did speak to him. He talked about childhood memories; memories that were once more real to him. He saw strange things in the sky above him, and tried to wave them away. Several times, he thought that Kabil was his father. Once, he had wept.

"North," he told them. "We should go north. That's what Hasad commands."

"So blue," Hasad whispered, blinking up at the sky. "Why don't they come?"

"There will be better hunting there," he told them, "further away from Mordor. And there are hills there. We will leave scouts on the hills."

"I say we should go south!" protested a hawk-faced warrior, a stranger from another clan. "You're brother to a lord, you say? Well, so I am!"

Another one, dark and scarred, had golden beads in his hair, twice as many even as Hasad. He wanted to ride west, to sweep down into the fertile lands that the men of Gondor called Ithilien, and kill anyone they found.

Kabil walked over to Hasad's chariot. "What is your command, my lord?" he asked loudly. Someone coughed. He heard the sound of horses' hooves and the swish of tails, and the buzzing of insects. The charioteer stood impassive, the reins slack in his hands, staring straight ahead.

"So blue," said Hasad, sweat trickling down his face like tears. He pushed himself upright, and for a moment stood as tall as he used to stand, and the sweat on his brow looked like the sweat of exertion, not sickness. "They're coming," he whispered. "I see them," but he was looking upwards as he said it, up at the small patches of cloud that rode like horsemen through the blue.

"Hasad…" Kabil began, then corrected himself. "My lord." There was a time, not many days before, when such a slip would have earned him a beating. "They…"

But a scout was running towards them, scrambling down the rocky slope. "I saw them!" he gasped. "They're coming! Horsemen, fewer than us, but I can't see what their weapons are. They've got banners. One of them's green, with something white on it. A horse? They're not ours."

"They've come." Hasad gripped the edge of his chariot, his knuckles white. He was smiling with joy. "They've come. They don't know we're here. Kill them. Kill them all."

Kabil nodded, and he was smiling, too. The enemy was outnumbered, and every warrior of the clans was worth two or even three westerners. Hasad's men would fall on the enemy without warning, as they had fallen upon the outposts of Gondor. They could not possibly fail.

 _At last!_ he thought. _At last!_

* * *

Mínir ran, all weariness forgotten. Through gate after gate, finding back streets wherever he could, running quietly with his soft shoes, trying not to draw attention. When he was forced to pass through crowded places, he slowed to an impatient walk. It was only minutes, perhaps, before he reached the sixth gate, but it felt like far more.

Was the scarred man still there? Would they catch him in time? He had done what he could: hurried messages sent to trusted men. The scarred man's hiding place would be discreetly watched by people who knew how to watch without being seen. But none of them were soldiers, although some of them were good with knives or fists. They needed to be joined by guards, but who could he trust?

He stopped at the sixth gate, his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath. "No need to stop," the guard said pleasantly, "the gates are open to all," although there was steel behind the velvet of his tone. Everyone was watched now. At every gate, everyone was watched closely, although most were unaware of it.

"I know," Mínir gasped. "I need…" He fumbled in his pouch, trying to grasp the token. "Captain Celagon. I need to talk to Captain Celagon, who commands the city guard."

"He isn't here," the guard said, and there was no gentleness in his voice now, and his eyes were cold. "What makes you think he'd speak to someone like you?"

But then he had it: the king's token gripped in his sweat-drenched hand. "I've got a token," he said, but at the last moment, he curled his fingers around it, suddenly reluctant to show it to just anyone. "Where's your gate captain? Can I speak to him?"

"I am the gate captain," a tall man said, appearing from the shadow of the wall. He was flanked by two guards, and the three of them together made Mínir want to take a step back, remembering when he was young and a nobody, when the appearance of three tall men like this usually ended with him thrown out onto the street, and sometimes kicked for good measure.

"I've got a token," he said, standing his ground. "I was told to ask for Captain Celagon, who will send for…" _No, no, don't say it_. He stopped himself, shaking his head, struggling for calm. "Please," he said, searching for the sort of words that people like this might listen to. "It's a matter of the utmost urgency."

"Is it?" said the gate captain. When he emerged fully into the light, he didn't look stern at all, but old and calm and kind. "Then I'll take you to him. Seregon, you have the gate."

One of the men flanking the captain opened his mouth as if to protest, then nodded heavily, and went to stand in the gap. Still breathless, Mínir went with the gate captain, but when he looked back, he saw that Seregon was watching them, intently watching them as they walked through the sixth level and away.

And after that it was just a case of explaining. The gate captain wanted to see his token, and then Captain Celagon was found. A wait, then - an anxious, impatient, toe-tapping wait - as Celagon sent his report to the Steward, but even as he did so, guards were being mustered and commands were being sent.

Mínir was no soldier. He had started this fire burning, but there was nothing he could do now but wait.


	12. Links in a Chain

**Chapter twelve: Links in a Chain**

From _Historical Fiction: an Apology,_ by Thanniel Scrivener, F.A. 1659

Scholars mock what I do. They write history, scrupulous researched. I write mere fiction, stories of little worth.

But history has always been story. Histories have come down to us from the Elder Days, and in them we hear that Fëanor said this, and Thingol said that. We hear the words of Isildur, spoken in snatched moments before his death. Were any of those exact words spoken? Did someone stand beside the speakers and write them down? Or did scholars and bards and minstrels later compose what these great ones _might_ have said, based on a dim memory of someone who was there? The stories tell the essential truth of what had happened, but do they always tell the actual truth, true in every detail?

I think not. Today our scholars adhere so much to truth that it makes them dry. They have lost the "story" from history. They rattle off lists and numbers: times and dates, the composition of an army, facts and figures about life expectancies, about the thickness of defensive walls, about the value of coinage. When eyewitnesses have left accounts, they quote them, and that is good, but for every person who left a diary, we have a thousand who did not.

I write fiction, I admit that, but like their history, my fiction is scrupulously researched. I write fiction that could have been. My latest book is set in the twelfth year of the Fourth Age. Many histories have been written about that summer, but I aim to fill the gaps in them. I will go behind closed doors. When Elessar or Faramir were closeted in private debate, and no record was kept of it, I will put words in their mouths. Fiction, yes, but we know what actions resulted from those debates, and we know what sort of men they were. Words such as these were doubtless spoken. Does it matter if mine are not the right ones?

And I will flesh out people who are just names to us. "A report came from an informant in the city," the historians write, "that the man they were searching for had been sighted. A party of eight was sent out to bring him down." And that is all that they give us. They report the result of the mission, and its consequences. They don't bother telling us the name of the informant. They don't bother telling us the names of those men. They don't pause to wonder what those men felt as they moved in on their target. Such men are nothing to them if they left no record.

I tell their tale. Sometimes my heroes are ordinary people, fictional people who might have been, caught up in great events. Sometimes my heroes are great ones, and I take the words they have left to us, and flesh them out. In my books, even the greatest of kings knows fear, and wrestles sometimes with doubt about the wisdom of his choice. Fanciful nonsense, the scholars say, but to them I say only this: how can you be so sure?

Just because no evidence remains, how can you be so sure that it never happened?

* * *

The guard was ready, hot beneath his armour. He had to be discreet; that's what he'd been ordered. Discreet if he could. Reveal himself only if he had to. They were defending the entrance to the alley, he and his mate, trying to keep to the shadows as much as possible, but ready to move out if they saw anyone moving ahead.

Who was the target? A man with a sword cut on his cheek, a couple of days old. He hadn't been told anything else. A wrong-doer, obviously. A common murderer? A thief? A wife-beater? He hoped not. He hoped that it was _him,_ the low-life who'd murdered Hastor and dumped him in a fountain. Hastor had been his mate, too, although he was a quiet fellow, never one for drinking and loud banter. But sometimes quietness was what you needed. You could say things to a quiet comrades, things you could never say to the rowdy lads down in the tavern. You could say things, and they listened, and never breathed a word of it to another soul.

 _I hope it's him,_ the guard thought. _I hope I'm the one to bring him down._

But for now, all he could do was wait, sweltering in the sun. He glanced up at the roof. Worse up there, of course, with no shadows at all, just the baking hot tiles.

But the watcher on the roof was used to the heat. He had been brought up on the street, and he knew how to survive hot days as well as the bitter nights of winter. That was all in the past now, of course, but the body didn't forget such things. He was Mínir's man now, or so he liked to think of himself. One day, he hoped, he would be just like Mínir: a man who liked to think he was a lone wolf, but actually had a loyal pack behind him. Bloodhounds, they called themselves. Bloodhounds, because they sniffed things out, of course, but also because a pack of hounds was nothing without a leader to give them purpose.

 _I was nothing,_ the watcher thought. Nothing until Mínir had found him and suggested that he might like to use his sharp eyes and his thief-trained hands to better purpose than stealing coins and handkerchiefs. Five years ago, that had been. Since then, the watcher had seen Mínir unearth several murderers, but his own part had been only a small one.

 _Let this be the big one!_ he thought. He edged forward across the roof, watching the skylight. The guards had the streets covered, the archers had the windows, and he had the roof. There was no escape for the target now.

 _Unless I've already let him slip away,_ he thought. He'd been stationed here before the news had been taken to the guards. He had been the second on the scene, after the one who'd made the first sighting. He'd been watching closely since then, not just the skylight but the streets below. The target hadn't left, or so he thought.

But what if he was wrong? What if he was wrong?

He crawled to the edge of the roof and parted the straggly patch of weeds, peeping down at the yard below. No movement there. He could see the archers, arrows nocked and ready. When were they going to spring this trap? Then he looked to the side, along the alley that led back to the street, and saw that a woman was approaching it, a basket on her arm.

They called her a healer nowadays. She had always thought of herself as a mere dabbler, someone who had always been fascinated by herbs and their uses. She had cared for her children when they were sick, of course, and in time had started to care for neighbours, too. Soon those neighbours had asked her to tend to their friends, and before she knew it, it seemed that she had become a healer.

Today she had a tisane for an old woman who lay bedridden in a tiny room: a cheerless room, cut off from the light. But as she went to enter the alley, a guardsman stopped her. "Better not," he said, quite politely. "Walk with me?" He deflected her with a gentle touch on the arm, steering her away, walking her back to the sunlight of the broader street, as her husband had walked with her before dying at the Black Gate. "Stay away," he suggested, "for now."

But it was a command, of course. "Why?" she asked. "No, you can't tell me, I know. But just tell me this. There's an old woman, a sick woman, third door along; her room's on the second floor. She's safe?"

"It's nothing to do with her," the guardsman assured her.

 _What shall I do now?_ the healer wondered. She could stay and watch, craning her neck to catch a glimpse of whatever was happening down in the shadowed darkness of the alley. She might see something: a tiny fragment of some great event that everyone would be talking about tomorrow.

But she had other patients to visit, and other herbs to gather. She had other tasks to do. She would come back in an hour, and hope that it was over.

 _It will soon be over,_ thought the guard captain, _one way or the other._ It was time to spring the trap. He could only hope that the target was still where he was supposed to be. He could only hope that nobody had slipped up and warned the target that they had him surrounded. He thought he had all eventualities covered. What if the target had allies, heavily armed allies? He thought he was prepared.

He had to be. His lads didn't know who the target was, but the captain did. He knew how important it was that the man was taken alive. Alive, because he might be innocent: just an innocent man with a fresh wound on his face. Alive, because he might be guilty; guilty, but able to answer questions.

The archers were in place. The guardsmen were in place. The bloodhounds were watching, watching every avenue of escape. This had to work; it had to. If he succeeded, it might be his ticket to glory. If he failed…

 _If this fails,_ he thought, _then it will be someone else's fault, not mine._

He looked round, and nodded at his second, below him on the landing. It was time. It was time to spring the trap.

They moved forward, and inside…

Inside the target was ready for them, but only just. His wound hurt every time he moved. His head felt heavy, and his limbs were lethargic. It blunted his thoughts, just when they most needed to be sharp.

He had come here to meet the vassal who went by the name of Seregon. He had arrived early, intending to think in silence for a while, but time has passed, and Seregon hadn't come. Perhaps he was a traitor, having spent so long with the enemy that he had come to think of them as good. Even if he wasn't a traitor, he was unreliable. He was just a vassal, fit for nothing but following the commands of his betters.

 _Tomorrow_ , he had thought. He would do something remarkable tomorrow, the next act in this great war of revenge. The plans were already laid. The fools had no idea what was unfolding around them, already gone too far for them to stop them. Tomorrow he would…

He had heard a sound then; just a moment's warning. He had tried the window; seen the archers there and recoiled back into the room. The skylight in the roof was too high, and they would surely be watching it. He drew his sword with one hand, and with the other, he unsheathed his knife. The hearth was empty, no time to spark a flame, but he had never committed his plans to writing, only a few short notes that would tell them little.

They were at the door now. He would be ready. He would kill whoever he could, but if it was too late for that, his knife would find his own throat.

They would get nothing from him. They would never know his plans, not until it was too late for them all.

* * *

Spears were flashing. Swords were swinging. Banners were streaming beneath the sun. The hooves of the horses of the Eorlingas were thundering, driving dust in clouds from the ground. Horsehair plumes were streaming, and men laughed with dreadful joy, because they were young and they were strong, and the Riders of the Riddermark were riding to war. They would defeat their enemies, and the banner of Éomer King would fly tall and proud above the field that had seen the ruin of his vanquished foe.

And Éomer? And Éomer King himself?

Éomer was not there. The battle he saw so clearly was only in his imagination. Banners still flew above him, but they were limp ones, held by men whose horses moved only in a slow walk. Most of the banners were not the banners of the Mark, but banners of Gondor. Only half a dozen of his own men remained. They watched him intently, jealously. Despite the close friendship that existed between their two kings, the ways of Gondor were not the ways of the Mark. Éomer's men did not distrust the knights of Gondor as such, but they could not allow their king to be entirely surrounded by lords of Gondor, without a few doughty Riders of the Riddermark to watch his back.

He looked up at the vast expanse of blue sky above them. The sunlight was fierce. It was the weather for a mighty song. "Spears were flashing," he murmured quietly, but Éomer did not lead them. He could not. And so he rode on, slowly, while his heart rode far ahead, where his Riders were.

It was the elf that had brought the tidings. Lasdir, this was: one of the elves who had come down with Legolas to settle in Ithilien. Legolas and two companions had headed into the east after Aragorn, and others were still out scouting. Lasdir and one other remained with the army, sometimes riding with them, and sometimes scouting ahead, their eyes far keener than the eyes of men. It was two hours now since Lasdir had reported seeing a party of fifty Easterlings several leagues ahead of them.

"Well hidden," he had said, "or so they must think themselves. As is their custom, their leader is in a chariot, but he is wounded. The rest of them have horses."

"If we continue the way we are going, they will see us?" Éomer has asked, but the answer was obvious. The Riders of the Riddermark had many skills, but stealth was not one of them. Theirs was all about the swift, bold stroke: the armoured fist that came down fast and came down strongly; a bold charge of horses, impossible to escape.

But he did not ride just with Riders of the Mark, of course. Even now, in unguarded moments, he sometimes forgot that.

"If they were elves, they would have seen you already," Lasdir had confirmed. "Of the keenness of the eyes of Men, I know but little, but I believe they will see you, yes. They are still. Whether it is because their leader is wounded, or because they are waiting in ambush, I cannot tell." He had paused for a moment, apparently debating with himself on whether to say more. He was less inscrutable than many of the elves that Éomer had met. "I believe that there could be another party of a similar size half a dozen leagues away to the north, but I cannot be sure."

Éomer had questioned him further about the location and disposition of the forces he had seen. Afterwards he had thanked the elf, although he was unsure how he should do it. He was a king receiving a report from a scout, but he was man receiving aid from a member of a race far older than his own. And so he had accepted it graciously, like a king, but he had also pressed his hand to his breast and bent his head, not quite a bow, but almost. The elf had responded in much the same way, respectful, yet proud. But then, as he had raised his head, he had given a quick flash of a smile, little different from the smile of a Rider of the Mark might give to a comrade engaged on the same wild game.

He was still here now, riding in Éomer's company. "Can you see them?" Éomer kept wanting to ask. "Are they fighting yet? Has anyone fallen? Are they victorious?" He wanted to pester him like a child. He wanted to know.

He wanted to be there.

But he was king now. A king of the Mark rode into battle at the head of his men, of course, but he did not lead in every small campaign. Even when Théoden was in his prime, Éomer's father, and not Théoden himself, had led the forays against the orcs. Lords led their éoreds, and the marshals led larger musterings against their foes. Marshals only existed because the king could not fight in every battle. He led only in the greatest battles. In lesser conflicts, he had to learn how to stay behind.

"They will see us?" Éomer had echoed, once Lasdir had given his tidings. He had thought for a moment, but this was a situation he had already considered, and he had already known what his response would be. "Then we will let them see us. We will send a small force of horsemen ahead, riding openly. Let them think that this is all that have come against them. On foot, we will send a scattered party of woodsmen and rangers, who can move swiftly and unseen. We will draw the enemy out and catch them between our two forces. The rest of the army will be bringing up the rear, miles behind. If things go well, the enemy force will remain unaware of it. If any escape to bring the news, all they will have to report about is a force of barely fifty men."

The small force of horsemen consisted of twenty-four of Éomer's men and the same number of knights of Gondor. Éomer's instinct had been to refuse them, to make the force consist only of his own men, men whose skills he trusted, but he had forced himself not to act upon it. Harder still had been the effort not to add the words, 'and I shall command them.'

A riding of forty-eight, with an army coming up behind. It was not for the king to command such a riding. Instead he had been forced to name Cenred, the most experienced of his riders, as their captain in this riding. Had Aragorn been present, perhaps then Éomer would have gone with them. Perhaps… _No,_ he thought wryly, _not perhaps. I would have gone. I know I would._ But he had been entrusted with the entire forces of Gondor and the Mark. Aragorn had left him in command. He could not ride away and leave them.

 _I wish…_ he thought, but there was nothing to be gained by completing that thought. He was a king now, and sometimes a king had to take a step back and let others fight for him. That was how it was. That was how it had to be, no matter how fiercely, how fervently, you wished that you could be out there on the field of battle, where your own men were performing deeds worthy of song.

* * *

The clansman waited, hunched low over his saddle. They had found a place with many steep defiles, deep enough to conceal them all, even though they were mounted. Pressed flat on the rocks above, their sentries waited. A tiny scatter of dust and pebbles skittered down to convey their signals. The enemy was approaching. The enemy was oblivious. Nearer, they were coming. Nearer. Nearer.

The clansman was eager for the fight to start. They had spent too long waiting during this last ten-day. Hasad was the leader of this strike force, but Hasad wasn't _his_ lord. Samir had ordered the men of three different clans to work together in this raiding party of theirs. Hasad had sent most of the others away after the successful raid, but had been forced by lack of numbers to keep some men who owed him no allegiance. They had to obey him, he had reminded them. He was in charge because he had proved himself in past battles. That was what Samir himself had said.

It was a lie, of course. Hasad was a distant kinsman of Samir's on his mother's side. It was bias, pure and simple. Hasad wasn't even strong enough to avoid being wounded. He was badly wounded, and likely to die. Who would command after he died? _Well_ , thought the clansman, _we will see_.

But for now they all stood together against the approaching enemy. "I don't care what drives you," Samir had said, "as long as the result is the same. Fight for your own glory or fight for the glory of your own lord. Fight for my glory, or hate me: I do not care. All I care is that you fight, and that your blades are drawn against my enemies, and not against each other."

His blade was in his hand, and when the enemy came, he would kill them, so proud and oblivious beneath their green banners. He would kill as many as he could: more than Hasad, so close to death, and more than that upstart brother of his. When the honours of this day were assigned, he meant to receive the greatest share.

 _I will triumph,_ he vowed, as he heard it for the first time: the sound of approaching horses. Slow, they were. So slow. They were arrogant, these fools from the west. They rode as if they owned the world; as if they could ride through it without fear, and everyone would lay down their blades and let them pass.

 _So slow,_ thought the Rider, as he rode at Cenred's right hand. It had to be slow, Cenred had told them, to allow the archers and scouts to get into position. Those men were on foot, following a longer route to avoid being seen. So here they were, the escort of Éomer King and the cream of his warriors, plodding along like old ladies taking the air.

His spear was ready in his hand. His sword was loosened in its sheath, ready to be drawn at a moment's notice. The land was bleak around them, but less bleak than it had been. Already there were expanses of wind-swept grass, like the hills and plains of home. He knew how to fight on terrain like this. He had been raised on songs of war, and he had trained for battle from boyhood.

But such battles had always been swift. Proud, joyful and unstoppable, racing down like a swift wind from the mountains. _Soon,_ he thought. Soon the world would explode into action. He would bring down his spear, and urge his horse into a gallop. He would twist and turn in the saddle, lunging first here and then there. He would…

He would serve his king. Above all else, he longed to serve his king. He was too young to remember Théoden as anything other than a name spoken sadly by his father, who was fretting at his king's rapid decline. Éomer was tall and proud and beautiful. The Rider had been ten when he had first seen the new lord of the Eorlingas. He had longed to be just like him. Knowing that he never could be, he had vowed to serve him.

 _How long?_ he wanted to ask, but it was not his place to ask such a thing. Cenred had explained things earlier. The archers and the scouts could not risk sending a signal to say that they were in place. The Riders had to take it on trust that they were where they should be. If they were, the archers would start things with a rain of arrows. That would be the signal for the battle to begin. If no arrows came, then the archers had been taken. If the archers were taken, the Riders were on their own, plodding slowly into an ambush. They were forewarned, and that counted for much, but their enemy would hold all the other cards. They could still win, perhaps, but not without great loss.

But all that, of course, depended on how well these knights of Gondor performed when it came to the test. They were supposed to be good, or so Cenred had reminded them almost grudgingly just before the two forces had come together: twenty-four of 'us' and twenty-four of 'them.' But the Rider had spent a week with the army of Gondor, and every night, around the camp fire with his fellow Riders, discussion came round to the quirks of these men of Gondor - and yes, at times to their failings.

 _We shall see,_ thought the Rider, but he could not take his eyes from the path ahead to glance at them. _It will start soon, and then we shall see._

 _It will start soon,_ thought the archer, as he regained his breath. It had been a slow climb, a scramble up rocks, all the while taking the utmost care not to make a sound or dislodge any pebbles. He had hazarded the briefest of glances to locate his targets. The enemy thought that they were hidden. They were readying their ambush, preparing to unleash it on the horsemen below.

He could not see his captain. Once, long ago, the archer had been a Ranger in Ithilien, but he had been badly wounded and had spent the war recuperating in Lossarnach. Three years, it had been, before he had been back to full strength again, and that was only because he had swallowed his pride and gone to the Houses of Healing and begged them to turn him back into a fighting man again. They had tutted and said that the world was already too full of men who knew how to shed blood, but they had found a way to heal him even so. They had opened him up again, removed the splinters that were causing the agonising limp, and sewn him up again.

And here he was. After so many years, finally he was being given the chance to risk his life in Gondor's defence. It was a dreadful thing to have missed the war, although he had had no choice. He was here for Gondor, for his king, for all those former comrades who had died while he was safe in Lossarnach, lost in pain.

The signal would be a bird cry: the harsh caw of a crow. He was ready, arrow nocked on the bow string. He had chosen his target. It was an enemy horseman, half hidden by the overhang of the rocks. _Soon,_ he thought. _Soon…_

 _Soon,_ thought the liegeman, eager for it to begin. He was Samir's man, body and soul. Once, he had served another lord. Another lord had marked him with his knife, but that lord was dead now. That lord had been a nobody; the liegeman understood that now.

Samir was their saviour. For centuries, the clans had fought amongst themselves. Even within each clan, everything was based around conflict. Boys were set against other boys, because each year only one could earn the golden beads of victory. They weakened each other. They crippled each other. As they had been just five years before, they would have fallen before the king of Gondor like grass to a scythe.

Samir gave them hope. Samir gave them strength. The king of Gondor wanted to rule the world, and under Samir, they could stop him. They could not fail. The first blow had come more than a ten-day since, when they had slaughtered the Gondorian outposts. This was the second blow. Like the first blow, it could not fail.

It must not fail.

A crow cried out on the rocky bluffs above. _He senses the slaughter,_ the liegeman thought. _The slaughter that is to come._

But then, even before the crow's cry had finished, it began.

* * *

"I think we should wear our swords," Merry said. "I've been thinking… It won't make us look out of place. Lots of people wear them here. And at least we'll be ready if…" He stopped. He seemed unable to say it. "If…"

 _Has it become as bad as that?_ Pippin thought. He found his sword, though, taking it out from the bundle of warm clothes that he had wrapped it in. He still had the sword that had been found under the Barrow, and it felt too old and powerful for him, now that he knew more about its provenance. Twin to his, Merry's blade had been able to harm the Witch King, where other swords failed. It had crumbled afterwards, of course, and now Merry just had a lesser blade.

Pippin thought he might prefer a lesser blade, too. Or maybe no blade at all. No blade would be nice, and for the whole world to be like the Shire, where no swords were necessary. He fastened the sword to his belt, though, and tried to stand tall and look worthy of it.

"What's happening?" Pippin asked, because earlier they had seen Faramir striding purposefully towards the gate that led down to the city below. He still hadn't come back. "Shall we go…?"

"Should we?" Merry asked, but already he was shaking his head, dismissing his own doubts. "Of course we should."

The guards opened the gate at their approach, but they were slower than they sometimes were, and seemed to be waiting for some acknowledgement from the other side. But nothing seemed different when they reached the sixth level. There was no sign of Faramir.

They passed the stables, and paused for a moment to watch a flock of birds take flight from a tall tree in the garden of the Houses of Healing. In the square near the gate, a man was pacing, sometimes sitting down on a low wall, then standing up again, pacing, always pacing to and fro. He watched Merry and Pippin as they passed, but didn't speak to them, and they didn't try to speak to him, either. You couldn't be too careful, after all.

Seregon was on duty at the sixth gate. "I haven't forgotten that I owe you a drink," Pippin said.

"Not now," Seregon said. He looked edgy, and altogether less pleasant than he had looked two days before. "I'm on duty. Was supposed to be off duty by now, but the captain went and left me in command of the gate." Then he seemed to forget about Pippin, and hurried forward, down through the gate and into the level below. Someone called his name, and he stopped; turned round and slowly, slowly came back.

"What's happening?" Pippin asked, but Seregon wouldn't answer. No-one else would, either, and Pippin found himself drawing closer to Merry. _I'm not sure we should be here,_ he was about to say, but Merry was already turning away. Like Pippin, he was already heading back the way they had come.

The pacing man was still there, but he had stopped pacing for a while, and was once again attempting to stay still on the low wall. "I recognise him!" Merry whispered. "He was there in the crowd the day we arrived in the city. He was trying very hard to get to Aragorn and…"

"To harm him?" Pippin asked. He had forgotten about his sword, though, and made no attempt to reach for it.

Merry shook his head. "I don't think so. Aragorn saw him, and didn't look worried about him being there. Mind you, when does he ever look worried?"

There was nothing to be gained from circumspection. Faint heart never won… well, whatever it was that faint heart never won. Merry and Pippin had been bold enough to insist on coming with Frodo, and bold enough to persuade Elrond to let them join the company. If they hadn't done that… well, how _then_ would things have turned out?

"I'm Pippin," Pippin said, marching up to the pacing man. "Peregrin Took, that is. This is Meriadoc Brandybuck, called Merry."

"I know," said the man. He had a nice smile, but he looked tired, as if he hadn't slept in days. "My name's Mínir."

"Pleased to meet you," Pippin said, as he sat down beside him. The wall was less low for him than it was for Mínir, and he had jump himself up with his hands. "What's happening? What are you doing?"

"Waiting," Mínir said wearily. "That's all we can do. Just wait."

"Oh," said Pippin, as Merry sat down beside the man on the other side. "Can we wait with you?"

But just then there was a commotion at the gate, and people shouting. There was just so much shouting.

* * *

It took too long. Minutes seemed like hours. Yards seemed like miles. "They have engaged," Lasdir reported, coming down from the bluffs that lined their road. "The arrows fly."

Éomer could not see it. How had Aragorn borne it? Aragorn had been brought up by elves, and had learnt all his early lessons in fighting and ranging from the sons of Elrond and others from Elrond's household. How had Aragorn endured knowing that no matter how hard he tried, he would never have the keen eyes of those who taught him? That he was so much more fragile than them? That he would never live as long or know so much?

No, it didn't matter, Éomer told himself. He was who he was, and he had never wasted his time in longing to be something else. He was no elf, but what he was was not insignificant.

He just wished he could _see._ He just wished he could help.

His men were so close, fighting, possibly dying. Aragorn was… where? He didn't know where.

Where Lasdir had been, another elf remained. He flashed some signal down to Lasdir: a quick hand gesture that Éomer could not read. "It has started well," Lasdir translated, "for your people." Again he gave that quick flash of a smile, making him look more like a man than an elf.

"Good," Éomer said, but winning was only half the battle. They had to win in the right way. Kill as few as possible, and take as many prisoners as they could. Stop anyone from riding back to their armies, bringing the news. The tactics had been Éomer's, but the goal was Aragorn's, explained to Éomer before he had left. Aragorn had trusted him to do this, and trusted him to do it well.

Aragorn had placed his trust in Éomer, who had been forced to hand the task to Cenred and the Gondorian archers, and Cenred and the archer captain had placed their trust in their men. And so it went on in a great chain of trust, and if any of those links should fail…

"They do not fail," Lasdir said, perhaps reading more from Éomer's face than Éomer would have liked. And then he was off again, back up to the bluffs, where he watched the distant battle, while Éomer followed on behind, powerless.

But close enough to intervene if they had to. He still had several hundred Gondorian knights who had been ordered by their king to follow his command. If they put their horses into a gallop, abandoning all thoughts of stealth, they could arrive on the battlefield in time to save a few, perhaps.

Perhaps he should do it anyway. The time for secrecy was past.

"They do not fail," Lasdir said, appearing once more at his side. "They have not failed." There was no smile this time. What slaughter had he seen? "You have won, lord."


	13. The Mounds of the Dead

**Chapter thirteen: The Mounds of the Dead**

From _The Archaeology of Eastern Gondor,_ by Ladon Forrester, F.A. 1968

For thousands of years, the lands that now form the north-eastern provinces of Gondor were a wasteland. As we travel north through Ithilien, first we have the Dagorlad, the battle plain, and then the Brown Lands. Throughout the Third Age, little grew here. Men crossed it at times, but after the wars of the Wainriders, they have left few remains.

As archaeologists, we concern ourselves with the physical remnants of the human past. Oftentimes, our concern is with the dead, but sometimes even the dead leave no remains that survive the passage of the long centuries. Others have left bones, but we have not found them. Just because we have not discovered a thing, it does not mean that such a thing does not exist. The so-called Brown Lands are vast, and we can only dig where we have reason to believe that we will find something. There will be bones there, as yet undiscovered, and very possibly the remains of camps and even of attempted settlements, lost over time.

Sometimes it is a chance discovery that tells us where to dig. A storm or a landslip reveals something that catches the eye, and when we investigate, we find something that would otherwise have remained lost. Sometimes, however, the written record tells us where to dig.

Thus it is with three mounds that lie fifty miles apart in the west of the region that is the subject of this book. One is a small mound, covered now with white flowers. What was found when we dug there has been left in peace. One is a much larger mound, and excavation has shown that it is built of stones piled around a chariot. The third, far away from the other two, is the smallest yet. In fact, it is no longer any mound at all, but the years have smoothed it down. It was found only as the result of a long and determined search by a colleague of mine, who had read about it in the writings of the time, and wished to track it down.

It is found at the heart of a beautiful patch of woodland, bright with blossom in the spring, and blazing like orange fire every autumn.

To this day, we do not know who lies there.

* * *

It was over. Hasad was dead. Hasad was dead, and Kabil was a prisoner. He had tried to die fighting, but in the end… Oh, in the end, he had failed. He had been surrounded by four of them, their spears dripping blood, and he had tried to fight, he had tried to, but he was horseless by then, wounded in the leg. His blade had slipped from his hand. _I don't want to die!_ he had thought. _I don't want to die!_

It was too late now. Too late now to wish that cowardice had not overwhelmed him just when he had most needed courage. He could have gone down fighting. He could have killed himself. Instead he had been taken. Too many of them had been taken.

He didn't know how many had died. At least six had fallen to the initial arrows, but more had been brought down by the panic of the horses. Even before they had sprung it, their ambush had been ruined. "On," Hasad had murmured, "on!" but only Kabil had been close enough to hear it. They had tried, oh how they had tried, but it was already too late.

The enemy horsemen had been implacable. He hadn't known that they bred men like that in the west! The men of Gondor liked to walk everywhere, they said, and only a few had horses, and they rode them badly. Their horses were pitiful things, not like horses of the clans, bred over many centuries for swiftness in war. The clans favoured mounted archers and swordsmen, who darted in, killed their man, and then galloped away again. Their spearmen rode in chariots, and when their spears were all thrown, they jumped from the chariot and fought with their blades, unstoppable.

 _Unstoppable._ It was close to a sob.

The horsemen who had brought them down had fought with spears and swords from the saddle. Their horses were larger than the horses of the clans, but they were not slow and clumsy, oh no. They were swift and strong. They were the finest animals Kabil had ever seen.

"Why didn't they tell us?" he said, speaking it out loud. Another prisoner looked up, his expression bleak. Kabil didn't know his name.

He had seen at almost twenty of them taken as prisoners, and more picked up and carried wounded or unconscious from the field. He didn't know what had happened to Hasad. He was dead, and nothing would change that, but he would be lost for all eternity if his body was not properly treated after death.

"I will kill you!" Kabil screamed at his captors. "I will kill you all!"

"You won't get the chance," said one of the other prisoners. "Why are they keeping us alive? For some vile ritual. They mean to part us from our forefathers forever."

"All of us," said another. They were close enough to talk to each other, but tightly bound, and too far away to touch. "They wanted all of us. Two men almost got away. Did you see that? They almost got away, trying to bring the news back to Samir, but those savage horsemen hunted them down. Their horses were too fast."

"Why?" Kabil wondered. His throat felt raw and hurt when he spoke. He had a dim memory of weeping for hours. His arms felt empty with the absence of Hasad's body. "They should have killed us," he said. "I wish they'd killed us."

But at the moment when he had realised that they merely meant to bind him, not kill him, all he had felt was a huge and overwhelming relief.

That was his shame. He would never forget it.

* * *

Éowyn was waiting when Faramir finally found his way back to their chambers. Earlier, she had taken her sword out of the chest, and held it ready, as if preparing to meet a foe. She had run through the first few moves of the training drill, and then had stopped, sighed, and put it away again. But this time she had not wrapped it at all. In lay unsheathed on the top of her summer gowns; gowns that soon would be too small for her. There would be no hiding things then.

But for now… For now, Faramir was here with her. If he had come for counsel, she would give it. If he had come merely for comfort… Well, she would offer counsel, too. She had that right.

"You caught him, then," she said, because the news had come many hours before him.

"Yes." Faramir walked to the window, where he stood with his hand on the frame. "It's the right man. Captain Daerion from the Great Gate looked at him and is fairly sure that this is the man who attacked him."

"Who might just be a man with a grudge against the captain," Éowyn said, knowing that she was merely speaking Faramir's own doubts out loud. "An opportunistic robber."

"Yes," Faramir agreed, "but I think he is not. I feel it."

"And if you feel it, then it is most likely true." Éowyn came to stand behind him, a hand on his back. He was a shrewd reader of men's hearts, was this husband of hers. On this, at least, she would never be his equal. She had spent too much of her childhood alone, looking out at the grasslands and dreaming of things that she could not have.

"He tried to kill himself when they came to take him," Faramir said. "What would drive a man to that?"

"Tried?" Éowyn echoed.

"He was not successful," Faramir said. "He gave himself a deep wound, but I believe he will live." There was no happiness in his voice, although Éowyn knew that the guards had been under orders to bring the man in alive. "Why would he do that unless he had secrets that he wanted to stay hidden? Would a common robber do that? He would protest his innocence, surely."

"Has he been questioned?" Éowyn asked.

Faramir scraped a hand across his face. "I did it myself. Oh, but I still can still feel the cold and the hopelessness of those cells. They aren't even cruel cells. Prisoners are fed, and fettered if they have to be, but not ill-treated. They are silent, for the most part. There are no screams, no moans, no desperate voices sobbing for mercy. But…"

He trailed away. That was why he was in the window, she realised; because he was so desperately craving light. Wounded prisoners were sometimes taken to the Houses of Healing, she knew, but if this man was who Faramir thought he was, he needed to be somewhere more secure. Not for him a mere room in a guard house with sentries at the door, like most wrong-doers awaiting judgement. The deep cells were seldom used. Éowyn had never seen them.

"Did he talk?" Éowyn asked. _Please, let him have talked!_ They needed answers. If the prisoner had talked, then Faramir would be saved from the decisions that lay ahead.

But of course he had not. Had he talked, there would be no doubt about who he was; no doubt of his guilt.

"Not a word." Faramir sighed. He was still in the window, still seeking light. "I tried every language that I know, in case it was a matter of understanding, but I doubt that it is. When you capture someone who doesn't share your tongue, they generally plead their innocence in their own tongue, even when it becomes plain that you can't understand them. It is an instinct, I think."

 _So what will you do next?_ She could not be so cruel as to ask it. She thought of the sword at the foot of her bed, and wished that this was a battle she could fight for him.

"They want me to hurt him," Faramir said, raising the subject that she had chosen not to raise herself. "The captains who came with me. The prison warden. They know what he is accused of: killing Captain Daerion, killing that guardsman, possible involvement in the attempt on Aragorn's life. They know that he might have allies and accomplices: traitors, perhaps, on our own side. They want names." He began to turn his head towards her, then back again, still seeking the light. "I want names."

"He tried to kill himself because he feared you would use torture to rip the answers from him," Éowyn said, because there was no point in protecting him. Anything she could say, he already knew. "He feared he would not be able to withstand it."

"So the captains believe." Faramir clenched his fist, fingers curling slowly inwards across the glass. "But it is widely known that the king of Gondor can read the secrets in men's hearts. The way the people speak, it has become more than it is: some kind of magic."

"And they know that you have a degree of that skill," Éowyn said. "It could be that this was what he feared. It could be that he know that no torture would make him talk, but a simple question could, asked by one with such a skill."

"Yes," Faramir said. "Or so I hoped. But it has not. Or maybe it is merely that I lack the skill to find the answers. Perhaps Aragorn could do it. I cannot. At least I have not. Yet." He sighed again, shaking his head. "I can't use torture, Éowyn. It's not who we are. This is a new age, an end to the evils of the past. We must be able to look at the kingdom we're building with pride and confidence. How can we do this if it is built on the very evils that we claim to fight?"

"It has never been our way, either," Éowyn said, remembering how amazed the Dunlending captives had been when they had been offered mercy after the Hornburg, rather than the cruel death that Saruman had told them would befall them, should they fall into the hands of the men of the Mark.

"No," Faramir said. Then he fell silence. Several times she thought he was about to speak, but no words came. _I don't know what to do._ She thought that was what he was trying to say. But when he spoke, his voice was firm again. "I will not do it, Éowyn. I cannot."

When she was a child, Éowyn had watched her father ride out with his men, and thought that strength was defined by skill at arms. There were no foes then that could not be defeated by sword and spears, or so she thought. The more she saw of life, the more she knew that this was not true. The more she saw of life, the more she wished that it really was true.

"I cannot," Faramir said. "No matter what the cost."

* * *

Thirty-one prisoners. Thirty-one prisoners in his care, and even now, Éomer was powerless. None of them spoke his tongue, and he had nobody with him who knew theirs. Few from Gondor had ever known it, and most of them had died in the attack on the outposts. The Ranger, Mablung, knew some words of it, but had gone with Aragorn. Aragorn spoke their language well, and could have finished this whole game by now, but Aragorn was gone.

He did what he could. He had ordered that they should be bound by the wrists and ankles, and tied to posts so they could not escape. But the ropes at their wrists had enough slack to allow them to eat, and he made sure that food and drink was brought to them. Those with wounds were treated, or at least kept from immediate danger of death.

As afternoon darkened into evening, he came to stand before them. The lords of Gondor were muttering, he knew. These prisoners were very likely responsible for the slaughter of the outposts. The vengeful ones just wanted them dead. The more temperate ones reminded Éomer of the effort involved in taking prisoners along with them on their march. Better to let them die in battle. Less risky, too, to fight to the death than to strive always to bring your enemy down without landing a killing blow.

 _It is your king's policy,_ Éomer could have told them, _and not my own,_ but he was no coward to take that easy way out. He was a king, and Aragorn had left him in command. He ruled here, not these lords. He refused to win their obedience by hiding behind Aragorn's authority.

"They might be persuaded to betray their lords," he had merely said, "if offered the right inducement. And it may be that when we meet the enemy host, we have a chance to parley. We did not seek this war. Let us show them that we are not the merciless killers that they doubtless paint us."

"You will not be harmed," he said now, as he began a slow walk around the compound. "Nineteen of your number died, it is true, but we could have made it so many more."

Nineteen of them, and four of his, two from Gondor and two from the Mark. Hundreds had died under his command over the years, of course. It was something that every commander had to learn to live with. He had mourned them, and he would mourn them again when night fell and he was alone, but he could not dwell on their deaths, not now.

"You will not be harmed," he said again, but they did not understand him. As he made his slow circuit, they started to talk. Some of them shouted at him, hatred plain on their faces. Some sounded as if they were pleading with him. Even when you could not understand the words, some meanings were universal. 'Let me go!' and, 'I will kill you!' and, 'I saw my comrade die. What is life now that he is gone?'

Turning, Éomer gave his command. Aragorn had told him how these Easterlings buried their dead. It was not so different from the ways of the Mark. They buried them in mounds. Warriors they buried with their chariots. Great lords they buried with their wains. Unless they were buried by their own people, their spirits would wander, forever lost, or so they believed.

And so one by one, carrying them carefully, the Riders of the Riddermark brought out the Easterling dead.

* * *

"There's something there, captain," Mablung said. "Ahead of us in our path. Pale." He peered into the gathering dust. "A body?"

The king crawled up beside him. Mablung had learnt how to address him as 'captain,' but he could never think of him as that. 'Captain' was Faramir, and the king was the king, far above such everyday titles. But the king was trusting him to do this job well. He would not betray his king by accidentally calling him by a title that must not be overheard. He would do what was asked of him. What Ranger could do more?

It would have been harder had the king been less skilled at this game. Had the king acted like a rich lord unused to the wilderness, Mablung would have been constantly reminded of the differences between them. Instead, the king both looked and acted as a man entirely at home in the wild places of the world. His boots were dirty and his clothes were travel-stained. They were old clothes, clearly, but when he wore them, he inhabited the part. He was tireless, and he endured their scant rations without complaint.

There were times, only a few times, when Mablung almost caught himself thinking that he was out in the wilds with a comrade. No, he corrected himself, with a _captain_ , because the king was better than him. When he wanted to go unseen, he went unseen. He never made an unintentional sound, and he could read tracks on the ground better than anyone Mablung had ever known.

When the War was over, Mablung had tried to live in buildings again, bound by the manners of the court. He had been born to such a life, after all, but after a dozen years spent out in the wilds, he had soon found it unbearable. He had lasted barely a year. Everyone knew that the king had spent decades as a Ranger in the north, but it had never occurred to Mablung to wonder if he, too, missed life in the wilds. Who would ever think to wonder that? Who would ever expect the king to have feelings just like any common man?

"A body," the king said now, "but a long time dead, it seems."

Neither of them moved. They had come to this height to look for living people in the lands around them. They would look a little longer before hurrying down to investigate what Mablung had found.

"Nothing," the king said at last. "Do you agree?"

"Yes," Mablung said. "Yes, sir."

They descended the slope carefully, the king going first. Although he was only a few paces in front of Mablung, his grey cloak made him difficult to see, as if the twilight was a shroud that coiled around him, trying to claim him.

The body lay in a small cleft between two rocks. It was hard to tell how old it was, because carrion was scarce in the Brown Lands, and the bones of any dead were soon picked clean by crows. But the bones were still intact, not yet scattered by wild animals or winter winds.

"One of ours?" Mablung wondered. "Or one of theirs?"

The king knelt beside the bones. The clothes had been torn by the carrion birds, but enough of them remained. They, too, gave no real answers. Easterling or man of Gondor, there was little difference in the clothing that scouts and messengers wore when they were trying to hurry through the Brown Lands. Beneath the skin, all bones were the same.

"He died facing west," the king said, "but that might not mean anything." He looked up, and Mablung joined him, both of them looking west. Was this man one of theirs: a scout of Gondor, racing back to the army with vital tidings? Was it a scout of the enemy's, returning to his lord with news? Or was it a man bound on a different quest entirely: a man caught up in a story of his own, dead for years, lying forgotten until Mablung and the king had come upon his bones by chance?

* * *

"Hasad!" Kabil shouted, unable to stop himself. "Hasad!" Hasad was still in his chariot, his arms resting neatly across his lap, as if he was merely sleeping. "Hasad!" Other prisoners were shouting, too, calling the names of comrades and friends. All around him there were shouts and weeping. They were going to desecrate their dead! Did they hope to force their obedience by torturing the souls of their comrades? Vile, oh how vile it was! "Hasad!" Kabil cried, but then, on the very edge of weeping, he remembered. Hasad had not been Hasad to him for many years, and had struck Kabil many times for calling him that. "Lord," Kabil sobbed. "My lord."

When he looked up again, the tall lord was looking at him. Was this the king of Gondor? He was tall, that much was true, but he looked like a mortal man, although his eyes were a disturbing colour, like a pale evening sky.

But power didn't always show itself on the outside. The king of Gondor could summon the dead. The clans had left so many dead outside the great stone city of Gondor, and the king of Gondor could make slaves of them with a snap of his fingers. "Don't," Kabil begged. "Please don't. Don't make a slave of him. Please don't." He thought of Hasad as he once had been: strong and proud and laughing in his chariot, the beads gleaming in his hair. Oh, but it was too much! It was too much!

The tall lord was walking towards him. He said something - a question? - but Kabil had no idea what it was. Hasad had understood some words of the westerners' tongue, but Kabil had never learnt it. And then the tall lord's followers were bringing Hasad's body over towards Kabil, carrying it carefully, almost respectfully. The tall lord spoke again: another question.

 _Does he mean something to you?_ That was what it seemed like.

"You killed him!" Kabil screamed.

The tall lord shook his head. He spread his empty palms, and took a step back. He crouched down, and pressed the back of his hand to Hasad's brow, then pointed to the horrible mass of infection that Hasad's arm had become. He shook his head again. _Not us,_ he appeared to be saying. _He would have died anyway, even if you had killed every last man of us._

It was true, of course. It was true, and that only made it all the more impossible to bear. Kabil tried not to sob. He could not sob in front of this lord of his enemies.

Then the lord himself picked Hasad up, and moved him even closer to where Kabil sat bound to his post. Once again, he stepped back. When Kabil moved his bound hands to touch his lord's dead face, the enemy lord did nothing to stop him. When Kabil stroked his dead lord's cheek, the enemy lord looked away, granting him a moment alone to mourn his dead lord.

 _No,_ Kabil thought, because it was too late now, and Hasad would never strike him again. _Not my dead lord. My dead brother._

* * *

They buried the bones beneath a pile of stones. At first it seemed as if there was nothing to mark the grave with, but then Aragorn found a young sapling struggling to grow in a thin patch of arid soil. He uprooted it as carefully as he had uprooted the White Tree, and placed it on the grave, packing its roots with handfuls of soil.

Perhaps it would grow, and perhaps it would not. It was important to have tried.

"I would like to travel a few more miles before we sleep," he said. His heart was unaccountably heavy, brought down by the sight of a man who had died alone, far from home. The dead man had probably had loved ones, but there were no tokens on his body to allow him to be identified. If he had worn jewels or any badge, jackdaws and magpies had taken them away, seeing them only as pretty, shiny things. His kin would remain forever ignorant of his fate.

There had been times in Aragorn's wanderings when he had feared that such a fate would befall him. There had been times when he had been wounded and far from aid. He had known that he would be mourned if he failed to return to the north, but he had feared, too, that they would never know what had become of him. Like the last king of Gondor, he would have disappeared into the dark, and nobody would have known for sure if he was dead, or if he would return again one day, the last heir of Isildur returning to the people who had given him up as lost.

Since leaving the army, he and Mablung had walked for two full days. It was easy to lose someone in two days, if you did not know the direction they had walked in. By the end of two days, there was a vast expanse of space that they could be lost in. Even if they did not encounter enemies, there were many ways for travellers to die in the Brown Lands in the heat of the summer, with its rocky terrain and the scarcity of water.

Legolas was tracking them, or so Aragorn had to believe. Whatever befell Aragorn and Mablung in the days to come, they would not be like the man they had just buried. They might die, but every day brought the risk of death, and great lords had died from foolish accidents in their own halls.

They might die, but they would be found, and the story of their ending would be known.

* * *

The ground was too hard for the digging of anything other than shallow graves, but there were rocks a-plenty. Éomer could not unfetter all the prisoners, but for each of the dead, he had identified one of the prisoners who had particular cause to mourn him. One at a time, he let them use the spade. One at a time, he let them carry rocks and boulders to cover the graves of their comrades. They did so hobbled, of course, and closely guarded. Three of them had tried to escape, but none had succeeded.

It had been a slow job to persuade the prisoners of his intention. Many of them had clearly thought it to be a cruel trap. Some of them still believed that, but they could not risk refusing. If there was any chance that they were genuinely being offered a chance to bring peace to their dead, they had to take it. They shared not a word of each other's tongue, and they came from different cultures, but it was not so hard to understand them, after all. Would Éomer had acted any differently if he had been a prisoner and someone had brought him the body of Théoden King?

"Why?" he heard the captains of Gondor muttering. "We have not yet buried our own dead."

"Because they are men," Éomer said, "and we are men. We do not wage war on the dead. They cannot harm us any more. It would be cruel to deny them their rest."

"But we haven't yet buried our own dead," someone whispered, not meaning him to hear it. Éomer turned, and saw that it was one of his own men; one of his own Riders, who fell to his knees when he realised that he had been overheard.

"Because our dead require more honour, Eadwine," Éomer said. "We will deal with the prisoners first, and after that, the whole night is ours for mourning."

It was almost dark now, the whole scene lit by the flickering of fires. It would have been easier, Éomer thought, if these Easterlings had burnt their dead, but that was not their way.

The lord they had buried in his chariot. The rest of them they had buried with their weapons. "Say what words you need to say," Éomer told the one who had most deeply mourned the fallen leader. "Say whatever words you can to bring them peace."

They didn't understand him, of course, but they spoke. One after the other, they spoke, and there was no anger in their tone, not as they addressed their fallen dead.

He wondered what they were saying. He wondered if he would ever know. Perhaps it was best if he did not. What people chose to say to their fallen dead was something strangers had no right to hear.

At length the words fell silent. By the light of the fire, Éomer saw that many of the prisoners were weeping, but some of them were smiling even through their tears.

It was time to leave them. _I have done it, Aragorn,_ Éomer thought. _Now let me mourn my own dead._


	14. Over

**Chapter fourteen: Over**

From _The Summer of Twelve,_ by Merileth of Belfalas, F.A. 713

Hindsight gives us all the keen vision of an elf. At the time, we do what we can, but our eyes are veiled. Sometimes we feel certainty when we should feel doubt. Sometimes we doubt things that turn out to be true. Sometimes we rejoice prematurely. Sometimes we fret, not knowing that our dreadful fears will never come to pass.

When the scarred man was taken, the news leaked out. There were few secrets that summer, or so it seemed. (Afterwards, of course, it would become clear quite how many secrets were successfully kept.) Soon everyone in Minas Tirith knew what the man was accused of, and in their mind, there was no doubt that he was guilty.

They received it with joy. They were still anxious about the king's army, of course. By now, the messages that returned from the east were several days old before they reached Minas Tirith, even when brought on swift horses, far faster than an army could march. Just because everything was well three days ago, those with loved ones in the army still worried that everything had turned ill in the days that followed.

The anxiety remained, but the news of the scarred man's arrest took away the sharpness of the fear that had gripped them. Death had stalked their own streets. The captain of the Great Gate lay close to death, and a young guardsman had been slaughtered in a public place. When an army marches away, those left behind cannot live every moment in an agony of fear. The worry never leaves them, but life goes on. How much more immediate is the fear that you might be slaughtered as you walk to market! How much more terrible is the fear that an enemy might be hiding in your own loft, plotting murder as you sleep!

When the news of the arrest broke, throughout the city there was a collective exhalation of relief. We now know, of course, that Faramir was far from certain that the danger was over, and was convinced that the prisoner had important secrets still to tell. The people knew nothing of this, however. As far as they were concerned, the danger in the city was past and gone.

They were wrong, of course, but who are we to blame them? Hindsight makes seers of us all.

* * *

"It feels nicer," Pippin said, when they had been walking for a while. "Don't you think the city feels nicer, Merry?"

"It's a little less hot," Merry said. "Still sunny, but with a pleasant cooling breeze, carrying the smell of flowers from the gardens. Definitely nicer than…" He wrinkled his nose as they passed a market stall. "…smoked fish."

Pippin fell silent as they passed through the fourth gate. The guards watched them closely, but the guards were watching everyone closely. At least they were doing it in order to keep the city safe. The ordinary citizens just stared for no good reason at all. _Yes,_ it made Pippin want to shout, _I_ am _a hobbit. No, I'm not one of the ones who went to Mount Doom. I'm the one who helped stop Faramir from burning to death, and Merry here helped kill the Witch King. Yes, we_ are _very small. No, we're not princes. Now, would anybody like to settle down to a nice spot of elevenses with us, and maybe a drink or two, so we can get to know each other without all the staring?_

Because they were all quite nice when you got the know them, these Gondorians. When you met them one at a time, and they were happy to chat to you over a drink, they were just like ordinary people back at home. Taken together, however, they were just so _big_.

But big and _good_ , of course. It was nice to see them beginning to smile again.

"That's part of it, yes," he said. "But it's more than that. It feels _happier_. I think news must have spread about that man they arrested yesterday."

"News always spreads. That's what Strider," Merry said, lowering his voice to a whisper as he said the name, "was so worried about. Rumours were spreading that nobody should have known about. Somebody was deliberately making people afraid."

"Well, this is the opposite, then." Pippin watched a young woman walk by, a basket swinging from her hand, a song on her lips. Laughter came from an upstairs balcony. "I'd say that this is a city that knows that a very bad man has been safely locked away. Plenty of people must have seen them dragging him through the streets. So many guards for just one man? They've put two and two together, that's what they've done. They've worked out that this is the man who's been doing all the attacks these last couple of weeks – perhaps even an accomplice of the man who tried to kill the king."

"Or they've been told," Merry said with a grimace. "Told by someone who had no business to do the telling."

"The mischief-makers? The enemy?" Pippin shook his head. "If they wanted to spread fear and panic, they'd keep very quiet about _this_. This is _good_ news. This shows them _losing_. There's nothing wrong with _this_ news slipping out."

There were silent again as they passed through the next gate. On the far side, close to the guard house, a cluster of old men were standing. "…well into the Brown Lands by now," Pippin heard one of them say, and another pressed his hand to his breast, and said, "Oh, please, let them came back safely!"

What was Aragorn doing now? Were their friends still well? Sometimes Pippin woke at night, wondering, and found it hard to sleep again. But you had to carry on, didn't you? It was like those weeks when Frodo and Sam were in Mordor, and you could have torn yourself apart with worry about them, but you couldn't, because there were so many other things to do, and if you let yourself think about them, _really_ let yourself think about them, then you'd be good for nothing at all.

In some ways it was worse this time, because there was less for Merry and Pippin to do now; less to distract them from worrying. But at the same time, it was better, because after the hideous things they had survived in the War, it was hard to imagine that their friends could be anything other than victorious. And at least they were together: Aragorn and Éomer, Legolas and Gimli, keeping each other safe. From the very first moment they had met him, Strider had taken care of them. You didn't need to worry about _him_.

But you did, of course, even if just a little. You did.

* * *

The king was lying with his eyes closed, entirely still. He had lain like that for long minutes as the sky had darkened. Grey clouds were rolling in from the east, carried by a rising breeze. _It will rain soon,_ Mablung thought. He tugged at his cloak, pulling it closer around him. He was not cold, not yet, but he knew how well the cloak could conceal. There were times when the king was barely a dozen yards away, unmoving in his cloak, but to Mablung it seemed as if he had disappeared entirely.

Still no movement from the king. He was breathing; of course he was. Mablung resisted the urge to touch him, to make sure that he hadn't fainted, or worse. He swallowed hard. He wanted to touch him, but he also wanted to crawl away. It seemed wrong to be so close to him, looking at him as he lay there with his eyes shut. He could see the dirt in the folds of his fingers and a shallow scratch on the side of his neck. He could see the pulse in his throat and a smear of dust on his cheek.

He looked away. He heard rather than saw the king begin to stir again. "Few living creatures walk upon the earth for many miles around us," the king said. He had been so still that Mablung had almost expected him to sound bleary, like an awakening sleeper, but he did not. "I can no longer hear our army in the west. We are closer now to the army in the east. I can hear it now. There are many of them, and they do not tread lightly."

"But no-one…" Mablung's mouth was dry. He cleared his throat. "No-one closer?"

"Some," the king said. "Scouts and outriders who go ahead of their army. We will have to avoid them."

"Or hide from them," Mablung said, gesturing at their cloaks. He wondered if he was permitted to ask any more questions, but the king had never yet denied him answers, or reacted angrily to anything he said. Mablung had known captains of much lesser rank be far less forbearing. "Is Lord Legolas where you expect him to be?"

"Elves tread too lightly for me to hear them." The king smiled, as if struck by some memory. "But if something had gone ill, he would have found a way to let me know."

Unless things had gone so ill that he was unable to. It was hard to imagine an elf being taken by surprise, but it was hard to imagine a king with dirt behind his nails. When on watch in the night, surrounded by the empty darkness, it had been easy to believe that they were entirely alone, and that even the elves had gone.

"But there is one set of footsteps…" the king said, frowning. "Someone who is trying to move lightly, but is less good at it than Legolas."

"Following us?" Despite himself, Mablung looked back the way they had come. The sky was still blue in the west, sunlight sparkling on the distant hills.

"No," said the king, his frown deepening. "I believe not." But there was a 'but…' there, although he did not say it.

* * *

This went past mere pleasure. This was not just relief or the passing happiness that came from a piece of good news about somebody else. At times, it was verging on jubilation. Daerion could still not quite bring himself to believe it.

"Good to see you on your feet again, Captain." They greeted him wherever he went, some effusively, some quietly, but with emotion evident in their eyes. "When the report went out that you were dead…"

"A false report, thankfully," Daerion said. He was not normally gruff, but it was hard to know how to react to all this joy. He was not used to such attention. He had never sought it, preferring to keep his head down and do his job.

"Yes, yes, so they said the morning after. But we were still worried. If it was bad enough that they feared you would die…"

"I didn't die."

There was nowhere to go where he could be alone, only his own quarters, and that was the one place where he had no desire to be. He had spent too long there; too many long hours with the curtains drawn against the light. He had no idea that he was so well known in the city. He captained the Great Gate, yes, but gate guards never went out and sought glory on the battlefield.

Now people came up to shake his hand, to pat him on the back. Girls young enough to his granddaughters watched from windows, wreathed in smiles. There was more restraint in the guard house, but more real feeling, too. At least his own lads knew him. A quick nod and a slight smile from a laconic comrade meant more than any protestations of joy.

At first, he had tried to walk like a wounded man, mindful of the fact that as far as everyone else knew, he had been on the point of death just two days before. After a few hundred yards, it ceased to be a pretence. He was not yet recovered. He was getting old. Even a slight wound could end the career of someone past their prime.

If it did, would that be so bad a thing? He did not know.

His steps dragging, he walked to the stone bench outside his quarters, and sank heavily down upon it. People tried to help them. He waved them away, then waved them away more firmly when they tried to insist. He closed his eyes. When he opened them, the two periain, Meriadoc and Peregrin, were at the gate, clearly asking to come in. Daerion smiled, and indicated that they could be admitted.

"We thought we'd come to see you," Peregrin said, "now that you're officially alive again. We saw him getting brought in, you know: the man who attacked you."

"I saw him, too." That was all Daerion would say about it. He had travelled to the Citadel in a sealed carriage, and had been led into the prison by silent guards who had offered him their elbows to lean on. He had declined at first, only to accept at the bottom of the second staircase. He had viewed the prisoner through a grate in the wall, seeing him in shadow and faint candlelight. Tall, pale, with deep-set eyes and a prominent nose…

He remembered. He remembered.

"But now that he's caught, you're up and about again." Meriadoc smiled. "Everyone's clearly thrilled about it."

"It's not me," Daerion found himself saying. "It's nothing to do with me. They're clinging to it because it's the first piece of good news they've had since the attack on the king. They were hungry for such news. It could have been anything. It just happened to be me."

"That's not true," Peregrin protested. "It's more than that."

"Perhaps so," Daerion conceded. "I'm captain of the Great Gate, and to them, in a strange way, an attack on me feels like an attack on the defences of the city. So now I'm well again…"

"No." Peregrin was stubbornly shaking his head. "Oh, perhaps it's true in a way, but we saw them out there. We heard how happy they were. We… er, we might have stopped off in the tavern for a while for a snack or three, and we heard them all talking. They'd be pleased about anybody, that's true. Because it's you, they're delighted."

Daerion had no idea what to say. Instead, he summoned a guardsman over and sent him to the mess hall for a tray of snacks. He knew little about these periain, but he did know that the best way to deal with them was to feed them. He wondered whether to tell them that, then decided to risk it. "Quite true," Peregrin said, happily admitting it. "Rather like dogs. But we don't bite."

The food came, and they sat in the sun for a while and enjoyed it. Daerion had intended to leave most of it for his guests, but was surprised to realise quite how hungry he was. After the prison that was his sick room, all food tasted like a feast.

"We heard something in the tavern," Peregrin said, when most of the food was gone and he was reduced to licking sauce from his fingers. "A boy said you used to know the king when he was young." There was a small hesitation before he said 'the king.'

"When _I_ was young," Daerion corrected. "And it barely counts as knowing. I was just a boy when he arrived in Minas Tirith. I watched him arrive." He smiled at the memory. "I was upside-down in an apple tree, as I remember. He quickly grew into a captain of renown, and I worshipped him. I longed to serve him. But he'd have nothing of me. I was very young, for a start, and he had other reasons. Good reasons." His hand went to his belt, where even now, newly risen from his sick bed, he wore the knife. "He gave me a knife so I would never forget the lesson that he taught me." He thought of his own stiffening joints; of the thinning grey hair that the looking glass showed him. "In appearance, he has little changed, whereas I have grown from a boy to an old man."

What must it be like, he wondered, to possess such a life span? To have friends and to fight alongside them, and then watch them age and die? Was it any wonder that the elves kept themselves to themselves, and seldom mixed with men? The king, he remembered, had ridden alongside Thengel of Rohan, who was long dead now, as was his son. Very likely, Thengel's grandson would die of old age before the king started to fade.

It made you aware of such things, being old.

He said nothing of that, though. Instead, he found himself struck by another thought. "When I went out just now, and everybody was watching me, all smiling, all with something to say… It's good to see them happy, but I started to wish that they wouldn't."

"I know what you mean," Peregrin said. "They stare at us, too. After the War was over, they used to cheer us everywhere we went."

"Is that how Captain Thorongil felt," Daerion wondered, "when we foolish lads followed him everywhere? Is that how the king feels now?"

Peregrin opened his mouth as if to reply, then closed it again. Meriadoc was suddenly very busy chasing a fragment of pastry across the tray.

"Never mind," Daerion said. "Shall I send for some cakes? There are some perks in being a captain, after all."

And for the next hour or two, they chatted together about their boyhood foolishness. It was quite pleasant. The day before, he had been officially hovering at the brink of death, and it seemed like nobody liked to trouble him with decisions and questions. They watched him, of course, and they shouted out their delight at seeing him up and about, but they seemed to have decided that the Great Gate could survive without him until he was well again.

He minded it surprisingly little. If this wound ended up his career, would it be a bad thing?

 _No,_ he thought. _I think not._

* * *

It was raining lightly now. When the king lay down once more to listen, Mablung crouched beside him and watched the fine droplets beading on his his hair and the fine weave of his cloak.

"Their army is closer," the king said, as he pushed himself up again. "It marches slowly with many a halt, but we have done ten miles since morning." He smiled grimly. "Ten miles nearer to them."

For dozens of leagues to the east of them, the Brown Lands slowly changed into wind-swept grassland and stretches of fern. They were on the cusp of the change now, halted beneath a small tangle of trees. The trees and scrubland could hide them, but the grasslands offered little cover at all. It was slow work moving through the ferns, and even slower to do so unseen.

"Are we still being followed, captain?" Mablung asked.

The king stretched, his arms first, and then his back. Mablung heard his joints crackle as he did so. "I still don't think he's following us," he said. "His path criss-crosses ours, and doesn't follow our trail. Perhaps it was a mistake to dig that grave yesterday, but…" He shook his head. He seemed to be thinking out loud, entrusting Mablung with his thoughts. He had never looked and sounded less like a king. At the same time, he had never seemed to be Mablung to be more worthy of devotion. "No," he said, "I think he came in from the south, and joined our path long after we had left the graveside, and today, we have left no trail that could be followed, I'm sure of that."

He had gone back to check, leaving Mablung to wait while he had walked back almost a mile. _He_ could see no trail, he had said. He had said it in a way that implied that if he couldn't see it, nobody could. A few days before, Mablung might have doubted that. He could well believe that the king was capable of marvels, but when it came to his own line of work, he was inclined to doubt people's ability until he saw it proved with his own eyes. Now, having travelled with the king for several days, Mablung believed him.

"Somebody bound for the same destination, perhaps," said the king. "Somebody who has chosen much the same route. But he is moving faster than us. He is being less cautious, I think."

"Because he considers himself safe," Mablung said, remembering how scrupulously careful he was when scouting in enemy terrain, and how incautious he could become when he knew he was surrounded by friends.

"Yes," said the king. "And we have lost too much time to listening. Unless either of us change our route, he will be upon us before dark, and there is little cover for the next few leagues."

* * *

Lainor could smell the ale. Sunlight glinted on bottles of cheap red wine. He had always thought it such a beautiful colour. Then, later, he had stopped caring. It could have been any colour in the world, and it could have tasted like filth, but he still would have drunk it. It made him forget. At first, it only made him forget the bad things, and made the word full of delight. A few drinks later, and he forgot everything.

He wanted to forget again.

He could not. He knew he could not. He hated every word that Mínir had said to him, but he could not forget them. They were true. They were true. He hated them, and he hated Mínir for saying them, but they were true.

He had run away. Just as he had done on the way to the Black Gate, he had run away as soon as things got bad. He had lost himself in forgetfulness, and because of that, he could have been charged with treason. Because of that, he was guilty of treason. His crime was cowardice, and he could not erase it with another act of cowardice.

The taverns were closed to him; they had to be. He could not go home. He stayed in the gardens, where the nights stayed warm enough for him to catch a few hours of unsettled sleep. The flowers stopped him longing for wine.

Rosseth had always loved flowers.

 _I can't…_ he thought. _I can't…_

He pressed his hands to his face. Mínir had promised to find him, if he asked. Mínir had promised to help. Mínir… Oh, how Lainor hated him! He saw too much. It was like Rosseth at the end. She had learnt his true nature, and she had despised him for it. It was horrible when people knew you for what you were; saw all your failings laid bare.

He hated him, but… But…

"Help me," he whispered. "I can't do this alone."

* * *

They had to trust to the cloaks of Lórien in the end.

The rain grew heavier, pounding on the ground, muffling the messages of the earth. Even had the sounds been easy to read, there was no time to listen for them. A path pushed through wet fern was easy to read, and not even a Ranger could hide such a trail. When the rain eased, it grew even harder to hide it. If they walked on, they would brush rain from the fronds, and no fresh rain would fall to replace it. Even so, most people would miss such a trail, but Aragorn had to assume that any scout or messenger travelling through the Brown Lands was skilled in tracking. All the clansmen were.

The other man was gaining on them too fast. By chance or design - _no,_ Aragorn thought, _I am certain that is not by design_ \- his path was still much the same as theirs. It was out of the question to speed up and try to stay ahead of him, because they could only do so by abandoning all attempt at stealth. They could change their path abruptly, but he was reluctant to do so without studying the land.

Or they could wait. They could trust in the cloaks of Lórien, and wait for the other man to pass.

"We wait," he said, his voice low, but above a whisper. Whispers carried more than a quiet voice. He led the way to a pair of thorny trees. Beneath them, the terrain was jagged, and unlikely to appeal to the man if he was looking for a place to rest. It was deeply shadowed, and although the rain had almost stopped, the sky was leaden. It was barely an hour until dark. "If we wrap ourselves in our cloaks and stay beneath these trees, he could walk within half a dozen paces of us without seeing us."

Mablung clearly wanted to protest. He opened his mouth; closed it again, and chewed his lip. He was uncomfortable. Of course he was. It was difficult for a man like him to place his trust in an object, rather than in his own skill. Aragorn had known Dúnedain of the North struggle with exactly the same. Familiar as they were with both elves and heirlooms, they were well aware that there were many things in Middle Earth that were older and more powerful than they would ever be, but it was hard to entrust your life to such a belief, even so.

Aragorn pressed a hand to Mablung's shoulder. "They will not fail us. Éomer and a hundred men once rode within yards of us in broad daylight, as we sat in plain view, clad in these cloaks."

 _I would place more faith in the craft of Lórien than I would in any man, no matter how wise or skilled,_ he might have said, because men, all men, could make mistakes.

* * *

In the end, Mínir had chosen his own home for this. He had bought in several pitchers of ale from the tavern across the road, and loaded a basket with food from the market. There were four of them here: the bloodhounds who had been most closely involved in the search for the wounded man. They had found their target, and he had been successfully taken. The guards were the ones who had been seen by half the city, dragging their prisoner away. The part played by Mínir's lads had gone unseen.

It was how it had to be. No matter how much they might grumble as they lounged here together with a few drinks inside them, it was how they all wanted it to be. They were men most at home in the shadows. Too much attention unnerved them. Some of them had been thieves, once, before Mínir had found them, and old habits of secrecy died hard.

"To the captain!" they cried now, raising their tankards. "To Captain Mínir!"

Mínir raised his own tankard back at them. "No, to all us, at the successful end of a long job."

 _The end?_ he echoed. Was it over?

Of course not. This particular threat might have passed, but city life would always have its fair share of robberies and murders. Evil would forever dwell in the hearts of some men, and Mínir and his lads would be kept busy trying to stop them before they could do any harm, or find them afterwards if they couldn't be stopped. But for today… Ah yes, he thought, for the rest of today, he was declaring it over. That was why he had chosen his own home for this celebration. For the rest of the day, they were all free from the need to be alert for suspicious conversation. No need to keep watch. No messages, no reports. Time to relax.

It was the best gift he could give them, really. The food and drink was just a token; nothing that they couldn't have bought themselves. The important thing was a few hours off. It had a way of following you home, this job of theirs. Even when drinking with friends in a tavern, you found yourself keeping a watchful eye on the discussions around you.

Then he looked at their faces, at the way they were smiling so broadly, so happy with this gift. A time to relax was important, yes, but the recognition was important, too. He was making them feel valued. Thanked.

Nobody had thanked him. Mínir took another swig of ale; paused to think that he had probably had a little too much already, then took another one, unrepentant. _It's over,_ he reminded himself. _Over, for today._ He wasn't in it for the thanks, of course, but he had to admit that he had hoped for _something._ He'd given his report, but after that, everybody had raced off, and he'd been… "Forgotten," he murmured. He'd been forgotten, left to pace up and down inside the sixth gate like an idiot. The periain - "call us hobbits" - had been a comfort for a while, but now that he had the leisure to look back at it, he saw it for what it was.

 _Now I've got a few pints of ale inside me, I mean,_ he thought, and he was aware that he was at that stage of drunkenness when he was capable of thinking foolish things, but still sober enough to be aware of their foolishness.

What did it matter if he had been forgotten? He'd played his part. He didn't have the skills to bring a dangerous man down. He didn't have the skills to question him afterwards. More than one guardsman had been wounded, he knew. There were wounds to tend. There were decisions to be made on what happened next: decisions that, for all he knew, could affect the whole of Gondor. Important jobs all. Far more important than…

There was a knock at the door. "More ale!" one of his lads cried, leaping up to get the door.

"No. Can't be," Mínir said, his head snapping up, suddenly alert. "I didn't order…"

But when the door was opened, it was indeed the lad from the tavern, his apron splashed with ale. "Message for you, Mínir," he said. "You told my Da that a man called Lainor, a weaver, might be asking for you? Well, he did."

His drink was forgotten. "He did?"

"Well…" The boy shook his head. "Didn't come in person. He sent a message. Said he couldn't risk smelling the ale." The boy looked almost angry at the very idea. "But he said…" He frowned, trying to remember. "Said he needs help."

"Did he say where he was?" Mínir grabbed his cloak on the way to the door. A few hours to sunset, and even at midsummer, it could get cold after dark.

"No," the boy said. "Said you'd said you would know where to find him."

Mínir reached into his pocket for a coin, then upon reflection, rummaged in his pouch for a good few more. "Run across to the tavern and get these brave lads another pitcher or two?" he asked. Then he turned to his Bloodhounds. "Stay as long as you like. I'll be back…" He shook his head. "I don't know when I'll be back. This could be a long one."

And a difficult one, no doubt. _And here I was, thinking that for today, at least, it was all over._ He laughed wryly to himself as he headed out into the early evening. He knew where the weaver had spent the last few days, although he hadn't received any fresh information in the last few hours. _I'll do directly there,_ he thought, _and if he isn't there any more…_ Well, he had his ways of finding him. Quicker to assume that he was still in the garden, though. At least then he might have a hope of finishing this before dark.

He headed down a narrow alley, across a square, through a strip of garden that lined an ancient wall. Past another tavern. Was someone watching him…? He bowed his head, passing through the overgrown arch of shrubbery that led into the garden. Was that a whisper…? _No,_ he chuckled. _The rest of the day off, remember?_

He was still chuckling to himself when someone fell upon him from behind. The last thing he saw was a cudgel, smashing down at him as he turned his head. He tried to shout for help, tried to fight, but nothing. Nothing after that. Nothing but pain.

* * *

It was a moth that betrayed them.

The clansman passed within a dozen yards of them. He was alert, scanning the terrain around him, but it was clear that he was following no trail. He did not as much as glance at the trees that hid them. Aragorn was barely breathing, his breaths shallow, as slow as he could make them. Beneath his cloak, his hand was on his sword, and his left hand was clenched in a fist.

It was a large moth that drew the clansman's eye. He was level with them now, beginning to move past. It must have been the movement that first attracted his attention, for he snapped his head around, then smiled to himself when he saw that it was only a moth. But he stayed watching it for a while as it fluttered this way and that.

He was still watching it when it came to rest on Aragorn's shoulder. To the man watching, it must have seemed as if it was perching on the empty air itself.

Aragorn kept himself entirely still. The man frowned, peering into the shadows. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. Quick as a thought, his hand snapped up, and a knife was in it, dull in the twilight. He threw it hard, and it struck where the moth had been. Aragorn felt its impact hard in his shoulder.

But by then he was already moving. Too late now for caution. Too late. "No!" he shouted, more to Mablung than to the clansman. He was on the man in an instant, knocking him down, pinning him there with his sword. Shaking his left hand free from the folds of cloak, he revealed his clenched left fist. "I am carrying the token of Samir's own clan," he said, uncurling his fist to show the badge they had found on the assassin after his death.

He spoke in the language of the clans. Mablung understand a few words, he knew, but not enough. "Who are you?" rasped the man. "You aren't…" He tried to scrabble upright. Aragorn held him down, and would not let him. "You aren't one of us. You look like a _westerner_ ," he spat.

Mablung was still hidden. _Good,_ Aragorn thought. "I am," he admitted, although in truth there was little difference in appearance between many of the men of Gondor and the men of the clans. The look of Númenor was rarer, of course, and if this man had travelled to Gondor, he might have come to recognise the look. "You think Samir set out on a venture like this without securing the loyalty of some of his enemy's people?" He gave a bark of laughter, arrogant, contemptuous.

"You…" said the man, with doubt in his eyes. "I don't know Samir. Samir's not my lord…" _But that's his token,_ he was clearly thinking.

"I come with news," Aragorn said. "I come with important news for him about the intentions of the king of Gondor. Would you keep me from delivering such news?" He put as much command in his tone as he dared. He was a traitor to Gondor, and he could not appear to be anything more.

"Show yourself a friend, then!" the man retorted. "You keep me here at the point of your blade. How can I believe you're a friend?"

"You struck first," Aragorn reminded, but he took a slow step back. His sword was still held ready, but he removed it from the man's breast.

The man scrabbled with his hands and feet, pushing himself up into a crouch. One hand began to slip slowly, inexorably, to the back of his belt, where he doubtless had a second knife. "Tell me your tidings, then," he said. "If you've come with news of our enemies, you know how impossible it is for us to trust. Show your good intentions." The muscles in his forearm tightened as he gripped the knife behind his back. "Tell me your tidings, then turn and go home."

He could unleash the full force of his will upon the man. Enough doubt remained. Aragorn could command the man to believe him, and perhaps he would, for a while. The man would let them pass, but what then? What story would he tell, when he reached his own lord?

With a small sigh of regret, Aragorn tightened his grip on his sword. And that was when Mablung acted, rising up from the shadows behind the man, a long knife in his hand. It flashed once, and thus so quickly was it over.


	15. Intelligence

**Chapter fifteen: Intelligence**

From _Samir of the Red Sun,_ by Minastor Wheeler, F.A. 1513

In the early years of the Fourth Age, few in Gondor understood the people that they dismissively called Easterlings, thus lumping together many disparate people. The ignorance is understandable. Many of these "Easterlings" had come against them in the War, marching under Sauron's banner. It was only natural that the people of Gondor should therefore see such people as inherently evil, little different from orcs or goblins, merely clad in a fairer form.

The men and women who followed Samir did not think of themselves as coming from the East. Admittedly, they classed the men of Gondor and beyond as "westerners" and looked at them with a mixture of hatred and contempt. However, to them, "an easterner" was a member of the tribes to their east, their bitter enemies for many centuries.

They had no real collective term for themselves, being loyal only to their own lord and their own clan. They followed Sauron, true, but they did not do so because they loved him. In fact, many of their lords hated him and his emissaries, as they always hated anyone who sought to dominate them - something Samir himself frequently discovered to his cost. They did his bidding because they believed that there was advantage to them in doing so. Admirable behaviour? Of course not, and perhaps even more contemptible than the behaviour of those who genuinely worshipped Sauron. However, as historians we should aim to understand, not to judge.

When Sauron fell, many of the creatures who served him fell into disarray, because they possessed no will that did not come from their dark master. In contrast, when Sauron fell, these clansmen gathered themselves together, licked their wounds - for they had suffered great losses on the Pelennor and elsewhere - and went back home to pick up the pieces of their lives.

In the early years of the Fourth Age, Elessar and his captains led many forays and campaigns against pockets of resistance in and around Mordor: followers of Sauron who wished to avenge his fall. However, when Samir and his army marched against Gondor in the summer of '12, they did not do so because they still served Sauron in their hearts.

For thousands of years, men had fought men. The Wainriders - distant ancestors, perhaps, of Samir's clansmen - came against Gondor, and this was a war between men. But behind the attacks of the Wainriders lurked the hand of Sauron. He was the gamesmaster, and armies of men were his pieces. For thousands of years, when men fought men, Sauron was behind it.

When Samir marched, he did so for many reasons - reasons which will be explored during the first few chapters of this book - but Sauron was not one of them.

Fifteen centuries have passed, and is might seem laughable to see these events as 'modern' in any way, but I contend that when Samir set out with his army, he went to wage the first war of modern times.

* * *

The fountain was an old one, fashioned in the form of a tall man who held a large jug beneath one arm, supporting its weight with the other. Water poured ceaselessly from the jug into the pool below, but the features of the man's face were almost worn away, and his clothes were pitted with water damage and green with algae. Lainor had no idea who he was, but he found himself drawn to the pool. There was fresh water to drink, to keep him from thirsting for wine, and the constant noise of the falling water helped keep the rest of the world at bay.

Would Mínir come?

 _He won't,_ Lainor thought, and it was almost a relief to think that.

He started to pace. There was a sudden gust of wind, and a cloud of water droplets struck him in the face. It was not unpleasant. He scraped them away, then raked his fingers through his damp hair.

 _What if he doesn't?_ he thought, and this time the thought filled him with something close to terror. _I don't know what to do! I-_

He heard something then, now that he was away from the constant noise of the fountain. A shout. The sound of a scuffle. A thud.

 _Nothing to do with me,_ he thought, but his legs started to walk him forward, almost as if they were moving him of their own accord. Another thud, and he was running, even as part of his mind whimpered, _No! No! Stay away!_

He pushed through a curtain of trailing green tendrils; brushed past a cluster of flowers, dislodging a cloud of pollen. It was later than he had realised, and almost dark where trees and shrubs overhung. It was there, in one of those shadows, that a man was lying. A second man crouched over him, rummaging at the fallen man's belt. "Thief!" Lainor shouted. "Stop!" Then he shouted it louder. There had to be somebody else nearby. There had to be help. "Help! Thief! Help!"

The thief looked up, and he was hooded, only the bottom half of his face visible. As he moved, Lainor saw the spreading pool of blood beneath the fallen man's head. The thief stood up, something trailing from his left hand. With his other hand, he carried a cudgel.

Lainor stopped. He froze. He almost took a step back, then forced himself to walk forward again. "Stop!" he bellowed as loudly as he could. "Thief!" And then he ran forward. He was not a small man, and he grappled the thief bodily, and almost brought him down, but then the cudgel struck him a glancing blow on his arm, and another, harder, across his shoulder.

"Thief!" he gasped, but he had hardly any breath left; the blows had driven the air from him. He sucked in a breath, and then another. "Thief!" he screamed. "Help!"

And then, at last, he heard answering shouts. The thief tried to pull away, but Lainor gripped him and held him with all his strength. "Thief!" he said, almost sobbing it, and the thief gave a great tug and broke free. He fled, scrambling over a wall and escaping before any help could arrive.

Lainor sank to his knees. His shoulders hurt, and his arm was screaming. He had been hurt worse than he had realised, it seemed.

But the man on the ground wasn't moving. Lainor touched him and found that he was still breathing. The man moaned at his touch, but didn't speak.

It was only when Lainor turned him over that he realised that this was Mínir.

* * *

"My lord!" Mablung gasped, when it was clear that the enemy had fallen. "Are you-"

"Hush," the king chided, but not harshly.

The man was still dying, Mablung saw. The king reached out, and the man took his hand blindly, gripping it tightly for the space of a few desperate breaths. Then his grip slackened, but it was not until the king lowered the man's hand and then released it that Mablung knew that the man was dead.

"Captain," Mablung said, although there was no longer anybody to hear him. "The knife… I saw it hit you. It was too quick. I couldn't stop it."

"It did me no harm," the king said. He stood up and walked a few paces away, and once again the cloak made him fade almost into the shadows. A minute passed, the king looking westward and Mablung unable to see his face.

"You wish I hadn't killed him," Mablung guessed. A few days before, he would never have dared speak so to his king, breaking into his solitude like that. "I'm sorry. My lord, I-"

"Nay." The king turned round again, and there was no anger in his face, no disapproval. He held his hand up, stopping Mablung from falling to his knees. "I wish it had not been necessary. It is merely that. But it _was_ necessary. You did well."

Mablung's heart was all a-flutter. While the danger was still present, he had been calm and cool, but now… Now that it was over…! First - worst! - the thrown knife! Desperate to leap out, but knowing that he could serve the king better by staying hidden. Creeping slowly, oh so slowly up behind the man, forced to trust in his own skills at stealth, forced to trust in the cloak. Hearing the king and the man talking, and understanding barely one word in three. But you didn't need to understand the language to see that the man was readying a second knife behind his back.

He swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly dry. "He was going to…"

"I know," the king said. "You did what you had to do. You had no choice. No," he added, after a moment, "you did have a choice. You could have acted rashly and thrown off your disguise and leapt into the fray. That is what many men would have done. You chose to stay hidden until there was no choice but to reveal yourself." He smiled, and although his eyes were weary, there seemed to be genuine warmth there. "You did well."

Slowly, slowly his heartbeat was recovering. "But the knife…"

"Truly, it did me no harm," the king said. He returned to the body. "We need to cover him with a cairn and hide it under the bracken, so nobody who passes will know that we were here. A mob of carrion birds would attract attention from far away."

He began to gather rocks, and as he did so, his cloak fell open, revealing his shoulder. There was no blood. There was a rent in the fabric of his shirt, but there was no blood. Mablung wanted to ask, he _needed_ to ask, but he had asked too many questions already. He busied himself with rocks. Soon even his hands had stopped their shaking.

"I would prefer it if nobody died," the king said, when the dead man lay half covered. Sometimes Mablung's fingers had brushed the dead man's skin. It had not quite finished cooling. "These are not orcs. They are not the servants of the enemy. They are Men."

"Men who served Sauron," Mablung dared to point out.

"Indeed," the king agreed. "And we have killed many such since the War ended, with little regret, although at times with sorrow. But these clansmen…" He laid another rock, almost gently on the man's breast. "Many of their lords agreed to follow the banners of Sauron's emissaries. They were offered glory, and a quick victory over their rival lords from other clans. They saw him as a means to an end. They had little love for their dark master. And some clans…" he said. "Some clans refused to follow Sauron at all, and suffered greatly for it. They come against us now not out of love for Sauron, and not out of a desire to rebuild his works, but…"

A crow cawed about them, gazing down at them with interest. The king stood up tall and commanding, and flapped it away. When it had gone, the end of the sentence remained unsaid.

"This is the first war of this Fourth Age of ours," the king said at last. "It is not a war of the free peoples against the servants of Sauron. It is a war of men against men. I would wish that no such war would ever come to pass."

There was nothing that Mablung could say to that; nothing that would not sound impertinent or trite. Instead, he busied himself with collecting rocks. Twilight deepened, and it started to rain again, only light drops. Soon the man was covered, and they did what they could with the bracken, hiding it from sight.

Mablung decided to dare the question again. "I saw the knife hit you. It hit you point first. I saw it." The common people of Gondor might believe that their king had some magical protection against all harm, but Mablung had seen him scratched by thorns and scraped by rocks. He knew that he could be hurt.

The king was silent for a while. Then, turning to the grave, he spoke a few words in the Easterlings' tongue. Mablung did not understand them. It was only when they were walking again that he returned to the subject. "There is little mithril left in the world. Moria is the only place where it can be mined, and Moria is lost for now. But the dwarves still have some stores of it, and at times they are willing to rework old artefacts into new ones. Gimli used such mithril when he restored the Great Gate of Minas Tirith, as you know, but that was not his only gift. He brought it from Erebor as a belated wedding gift to me." He pressed his hand to his chest. "A mithril shirt. As silent and as light as cloth, but it can stop an arrow, or a knife."

Mablung let out a shuddering breath, and it was only now that he truly felt the fear slip away. "It can," he said, laughing. "It certainly can!"

* * *

Nobody pursued him. For the space of a few streets, Seregon had feared that they were, but when he had finally let himself stop running, he had heard no shouts behind him, and no pounding feet. He had forced himself to walk slowly then: just a normal citizen out for a stroll. The cudgel he had dropped in the garden before even climbing the wall. He lost the coat a few streets later, ducking into the darkened space between two houses, and leaving it puddled against the wall. The next time he passed a drinking fountain, he stopped to wash his hands. He didn't think there was any blood there, but it was best to be careful.

His hands seemed to be shaking. It was because the water was cold, he told himself. It came from great stone cisterns beneath the city, and stayed icy cold even through the hottest days of summer.

Water. He made himself think about water as he walked slowly through the city. It was a safe thing to think about. He couldn't look as if he was in a rush. He couldn't look guilty. Water. His damp hands were still trembling. It was strange to remember that years ago, when he had arrived in the city, some of the drinking fountains had not yet been repaired since the war, and some of the pipes had cracked during the years of the city's fading. They were all repaired now, of course, and everyone in the city, high or low, could access free, fresh water whenever they needed it. No lord tried to claim it, or sell it for coin, or withhold it from those who displeased them.

So long ago now. So many years of his life…

"No," he rasped. Perhaps not water. Perhaps there was nothing safe that he could think about.

He certainly couldn't think about the sound his cudgel had made as it had struck the Bloodhound's skull. He couldn't think of the other man, and how close that man had come to seizing him. He couldn't think of what would happen next, not until he was safely off the street, back in the solitude of his room in the guardhouse.

He had the token, though. He had seen the Bloodhound present it, and although everything else that day had gone terribly wrong, he had clung to the memory of that token as the one gleam of light in the growing darkness. He had known at once that he had to take it, and now he had. All that remained was to hand it over. The lord he had always dealt with had been captured, but at least one more lord remained at large. Seregon had no idea how to contact him. They trusted him so little, did these arrogant-

"No!" This time he almost growled it. Hurrying through the darkening streets, a woman looked at him in sudden fear, then relaxed when she saw the uniform of the city watch.

 _Careful,_ he chided himself. He had to keep his mind empty. It wasn't safe to let himself think of anything at all, not until he was safely home.

* * *

It was the not knowing that was the worst. Oh, he received frequent reports from Lasdir and the elves, but it seemed that his heart could not entirely accept them.

Éomer was not the sort of person who needed to see something with his own eyes in order to believe it. He could not be everywhere in his realm at once. As king, he received regular reports from his marshals. As a captain in the field, he was used to receiving reports from scouts and outriders. He accepted them, too. He trusted his men, and if they said that they saw an enemy approaching across the plain, he believed them without question.

But those were all reports made by men, using the same senses that he himself possessed. These elves claimed to see things clearly that were many leagues away. Éomer was well aware that he was just a mortal man, and that there were beings in Middle Earth who far outclassed him. But knowing it was not the same as feeling it. He accepted what they said. He acted upon their reports, but deep down, it seemed, he doubted them, and he was afraid. _What if they're wrong? What if…?_

 _No_ , he thought, shaking his head. He had to place his faith in their keen eyes. He had to believe that Aragorn was still safe; that everything was going according to plan. Not knowing was the worst? But he did know. He did know, and it was not the worst of his problems at all.

"We covered barely ten miles today, lord," said the young lord of Lossarnach. He offered it almost tentatively, but Éomer knew that disapproval lay behind it.

"Yes," Éomer said, "and I ordered an early halt. This I know."

"Yes, lord," the young lord conceded, but he stood his ground. "There is a second party of Easterling horsemen in the north, or so the scouts say."

"Yet I chose to turn us slightly to the south," Éomer said, "to avoid them. We have stayed sufficiently far away that they will see no sign of us, unless they come south again. The elves report that they do not."

"Yes, lord," the young lord agreed. There were four more captains of Gondor in their small circle, and two of Éomer's own men. Gimli completed the party, standing with his legs apart, his axe upright in front of him, his hands resting on its head. "This is hard terrain," the lord said. "It would be good to see the end of it."

"Whether we march ten miles or twenty, the end of this terrain will not come for many days," Éomer said, "and we would meet the Easterling army long before then. Had we marched at our usual pace, and had they continued at the pace they set today, we would see the first signs of each other just before nightfall tomorrow."

"Night is not a good time for a battle," said one of the other lords.

"No," Éomer agreed, "and had we marched the full seven leagues today, we would have ended the day at risk of being seen by their scouts and outriders."

"Yes, lord," said the lord of Lossarnach, bowing his proud head. His bow could not be faulted, but Éomer knew that had it been made to Aragorn, it would have been more sincerely meant.

One by one, the lords departed, until only Gimli remained. "I think they were satisfied," Gimli said.

"Perhaps," Éomer said.

He could have played the king with them. They had sworn no oaths to him, but he was still a king, lord of an ally of Gondor. Aragorn had left him in charge. _Do you question my decisions?_ he could have demanded, and they would have been forced to let the matter drop. But this was not Éomer's way. Even if it had been in his nature to play the tyrant, it would not have been wise. Disgruntled captains made for disgruntled men. He thought the men-at-arms were still unaware that their king had left them, but he had no desire to cause them to ask questions amongst themselves.

"You told no lies," Gimli said.

"No," Éomer agreed, "but neither did I tell them the truth."

* * *

 _How did you survive it?_ Éowyn wanted to ask the queen. Arwen had stayed at home for forty years, while the man she loved went forth into danger. At times, she said, she had some faint awareness of whether he was well, but what was the use of that? What was the use of knowing, when there was nothing you could do about it?

 _I would have gone mad_ , Éowyn thought. _I could not have endured it. I am not made to sit at home and meekly wait._

Waiting at Meduseld had been almost more than she could bear, but at least then there had been her uncle to care for. A thankless task, true, and a heart-breaking one, but at least she had done _something._ What had Arwen done for those forty years but busy herself with embroidery and meekly wait for Aragorn to win the right to have her?

 _Weak!_ she thought. She jabbed her needle into her own embroidery, almost stabbing her finger.

Here they all were: the useless ones, the ones left behind. Arwen was sewing by the unlit hearth, her expression serene. Merry was reading in the window, and Pippin was idly stroking a sleeping cat. What a picture of domesticity they all were! Quiet home life continuing, when elsewhere…

The door opened. All heads turned sharply, but it was just a servant with a tray of cakes. The hobbits perked up at that, and chattered happily, making everyone laugh. But then Éowyn happened to glance at Pippin's face and catch it in an unguarded moment, and got the sudden impression that their merriment was, at least in part, an act. Their lively chatter had cheered many a difficult evening. "At least the hobbits are undaunted," Éowyn had said to Faramir some nights before, but although Faramir had smiled, he had shaken his head slightly. He was better at reading people, was this husband of hers.

"How did you bear it?" And here she was, saying it out loud, after all. "Waiting for him," she said, "knowing that there was nothing you could do to help him."

Arwen laid down her embroidery. She did not pretend not to understand. Neither did she question the 'nothing.' She did not claim that in some inscrutable elvish way, she had helped Aragorn all along.

"I endured it," she said, "because I had to. I chose him, and that was the cost. Battles come in many forms, and it is not just warriors who are tested. He had his own test, and that was mine. To wait," she said. "To keep hope in my heart. To endure the long years of waiting, knowing that however it ended, I would face a bitter parting. To live with those who questioned my choice. I bore it because I had to, but it was not easy. Never think that it was easy."

 _You were weak,_ Éowyn had thought just moments before. Arwen had surely seen the accusation in her eyes, or she would not have answered as she did. But even before Arwen's reply, Éowyn had not really believed it. Arwen was not weak; this she knew beyond doubt. And neither were the hobbits weak, if they could cheerfully chatter about cakes in an attempt to raise the spirits of those around them.

"It's just..." Éowyn said, and now she sounded like the weak one, unable to find the words. She was worried about Éomer and Aragorn, but at least they were far away, and there was nothing she could do for them. Faramir was in the same building, and at times he still slept in the same bed. A few days before, she had felt so strong, so useful, advising him on his dilemma over whether to close the gates. She had stood with her sword in hand, and thought that there was nothing that she could not face.

But the prisoner was still not talking. Faramir could get no answers. The people hoped that it was over, but Faramir feared that it was not. Éowyn could hold him in the night, but what was the use of that? She longed to be more to him than just a brief sanctuary of domesticity: soft words, an embrace, an escape. She didn't want to be a balm. She wanted to be the cure.

"Do you know how they are?" Pippin spoke up suddenly, his words directed to the queen. Éowyn had never felt more grateful to him. It kept people from looking at her. It allowed her to blink away the tears before anyone could see them. "Aragorn, I mean? Éomer and the others?"

Arwen closed her eyes, and half turned her face away. "Very little is clear to me, but I sense…"

She did not finish it. Pippin got up and walked to her chair. Unasked, he took her hand. "Tell us, please. Don't spare us." He smiled. "We might be small, but we're old enough to take it."

Arwen smiled at him: a warm smile, although her eyes were troubled. "Tomorrow," she said. "Tomorrow morning will be very dangerous for him."

Éowyn closed her eyes. What was truly worse? To have your husband close at hand, and be unable to find a way to help him? Or to know that your husband was in danger hundreds of miles away, when all you could do was wait and hope?

* * *

Aragorn took the first watch. When Mablung was sleeping, Aragorn quietly stood up and walked a dozen paces, then settled down to wait beneath the wind-bent tree.

Thin cloud covered the sky, but here and there, small patches of stars showed through. Even if the sky had been clear, there was barely any moon, only a thin sliver, not enough to give light. Although the night was dark, it was not enough to stop the night-time creatures who moved about in the distance: owls and bats, and other things, louder and further away.

It was not enough to stop Legolas.

"That was close today," Legolas said, appearing at his side over an hour earlier than Aragorn had expected. Aragorn had had only a few moments' warning of his approach, and that was only because he had been raised by elves, and his foster brothers had indulged him with childish games of hide-and-seek. Most men, he knew, would have seen Legolas not at all, not until he had chosen to speak.

"Yes," Aragorn said with a grimace. "I delayed too long listening for him. I should have tried harder to evade him."

"Some ill fortune dogged your steps today," Legolas said, "and caused him to choose the same path as you. What was it that drew his attention? That I could not see."

"A moth," Aragorn said. "It settled on me."

"Ah," said Legolas.

It would have been better in a way if Aragorn could have brought Legolas along with him instead of Mablung. It was not just his keen sight and sharpened senses. Legolas and Aragorn had come to understand each other over the years. Legolas would have come through his own free choice, or if he had come because of a sense of obligation, it was the obligation of friendship, freely given. Mablung was a loyal man of Gondor whose services had been requested by his king, and the spectre of rank could never go away. If Aragorn made an unwise choice, Legolas would tell him, but Mablung would not. Chances were, he would continue to believe that it could not possibly be a bad choice - that his king was incapable of making a bad choice - even as the consequences of that choice rose up and killed them both.

But Legolas was an elf, and it was impossible to disguise that. When Aragorn reached his destination, he could not do so with an elf at his side.

"How is Éomer and the army?" Aragorn asked.

"On course and well," Legolas said, "or so Lasdir reports." It was not a direct report, of course. There were parties of elves strung out across the bleak lands between the two armies, sending a chain of messages to each other with hand signals and waves. They were different from the signals used by the elves of Rivendell. Aragorn had dutifully learnt those as a young man, but he had lacked the keen vision that allowed him to see them.

"And the army of the clans?" Aragorn asked.

"That is why I came early," Legolas said, his voice turning grave. "They moved more swiftly today than they have moved for several days, and marched almost until dark. I believe that they were riven by some dispute, but it has been resolved now. There was an execution this morning, and today they marched quickly. When they camped for the night, they were a dozen miles closer to you than we expected them to be."

Aragorn nodded, but said nothing. It matched the sounds he had heard through the earth.

"If they continue at the same pace," said Legolas, "and if you do not change your course, they will be upon you by noon tomorrow: the outriders first, and then the whole army. If you head due south for ten miles, and then continue east, they will miss you."

"And we will be behind them," said Aragorn, "with no warriors between us and the homes they have left behind them." He smiled grimly as he said it. Many of his captains of Gondor, and perhaps even Gimli and Éomer themselves, would have looked favourably upon the opportunities offered by that.

"Their marching order is fluid," Legolas said, "as this lord and that lord vie with each other for precedence, but this Samir of yours is always at the centre."

"He is not mine," Aragorn said. "I have never met Samir." The palantír had shown him glimpses of him. Scouts had told him more.

"I forget." Legolas smiled. "It is the other one. Men are all the same." He chuckled softly, then turned serious again. No merry elf this, but a warrior giving a report. "But this Samir of theirs… He leads from the front, but when they camp for the night, he sleeps apart from the others."

"Afraid of assassins?" Aragorn suggested.

"Perhaps." Legolas shrugged: a man-like gesture, doubtless picked up from the company he had been keeping. "But although his camp is guarded, it is not heavily so."

"It is a matter of pride for him." On this part, at least, Aragorn was sure. The clans had followed Sauron for over forty years, but their way of life had survived. These were still the same people he had travelled amongst sixty years ago. "He claims the rank of lord of lords, but he has to maintain it with his own strength and the strength of his will and his oratory. If he surrounds himself ten deep with bodyguards, he had already lost."

But what did it matter? What did it matter what the reason for it was? Aragorn was just delaying the inevitable with this talk. It was time to decide. He had planned a late start and a slow walk, and one more night before the moment came.

"If we walk through the night…?" he began.

"You will be there in time," Legolas said, "but the night is dark."

It was Aragorn's turn to chuckle softly. Mablung stirred in his sleep, but not did wake. "We are not as blind as all that, my friend, even though we lack the keen sight of the elves. We are both Rangers. We will find our way."

"I will guide you," Legolas offered.

"For a while," Aragorn conceded, "but not all the way. Not to the end of it."

Legolas nodded reluctantly, and Aragorn went to wake Mablung and tell him that the time had come. "Tomorrow," he had to say. "It will be tomorrow, at the first light of dawn."

* * *

Éomer dreamt of galloping horses. Horses with empty saddles circled him in the wilderness, but of their riders, there was no sign. His own mount was gone. On foot, he stood at the centre of the circle and turned this way and that, trying to find anyone else alive. He started to walk. The horses parted a little, letting him. There was smoke in the distance. "My lord," someone was calling, but he couldn't see where they were. "My lord!"

He woke up and blinked fiercely, hoping that nobody had seen how fast his heart was racing. Cenred was beside his bed, his face lit by the flickering lantern. Éomer blinked again. By the height of the candle behind the glass, it was less than an hour since he had settled down to sleep, and less than that since sleep had taken him.

"What is it?" he asked. "What has happened?"

"The elf wishes to speak with you, lord," said Cenred. "Shall I-?"

"Let him in." Éomer threw off the thin blanket that covered him. As he did so, his hand brushed against the scabbard of his sword, which he had slept beside ever since they had left Ithilien. Aragorn's sword was more carefully hidden.

Cenred left the tent, and Lasdir entered, bowing his head with polite respect to a king who was many thousand years younger than him, little more than a child. "Is it time?" Éomer said. "You said we'd have another day."

"It is time," Lasdir said.

* * *

Kabil was sleeping fitfully. Even when he thought that he was still awake, Hasad stalked his dreams. "You are weak," Hasad told him. "You shouldn't have let yourself get captured."

"You shouldn't have let yourself die!" Kabil screamed back at him.

"You dare to reproach me?" Hasad shouted. "You _dare_? I am your _lord_!"

"Were," Kabil whispered. "Were. And now you're dead." He raised his head, his cheeks cold with tears. "And you were my brother before you were my lord."

Hasad struck him, and the sharp shock of it jolted him awake again, and once again he had to learn the reality that was worse than any dream. He had ropes around his wrists. He was tethered to a post like a beast. His fellow prisoners lay all around him, some sleeping restlessly, some awake, their eyes glinting in the firelight. Too many of them were dreaming, moaning in their sleep.

 _They should have killed us,_ Kabil thought. _Why didn't they kill us?_

He rolled over. He had a blanket, and the night was far from cold. It had rained earlier, but the fire was near enough to give some warmth. It was far from the least comfortable night he had endured.

His wrists were tied. Of all the nights he had endured, this was the worst.

Sleep took him again: Hasad screaming at him.

This time when he awoke, he did so because someone was shaking his shoulder: a man who spoke to him low and quick in his own tongue.

* * *

end of chapter fifteen

* * *

Note: I intend to post two chapters back-to-back tomorrow. The second one follows on directly from the first one, and I'm reluctant to separate them. I'll probably post two on Sunday, too, since I'll have more editing time over the weekend.


	16. The Wain

**Chapter sixteen: The Wain**

From _Songs of Crowns and Kings,_ by Hador Herrison of Annúminas, F.A. 2147

In my travels as a collector of folk song and folklore, I have unearthed many songs about kings. Some were almost forgotten, and were dragged out from the depths of memory by my aged informants. Had I come to their village just a few years later, these songs would have been lost forever. Some were still cherished, and heartily sung in taverns and by the farm hands at their labours.

Many songs are about rural life: harvests and cold winters and the sowing of seed. Many, of course, tell of love, both gained and lost. But a surprisingly large number tell of kings. The realm is vast, and countless millions live within it. Even if the king spent every day of his life on the road, most of his subjects would live their whole life without ever seeing him. So why, then, are so many songs about kings, rather than about squires and sheriffs, and all the other local figures of authority that the labouring man encounters in his life?

This I cannot answer, except to suggest that even in these days of councils and committees, the very word "king" has a strong glamour about it. Some of the greatest heroes of our histories are the kings of old. Facing yet another dismal harvest, it must be very tempting for the struggling farmer to dream of a world in which a mighty king might ride up on his prancing steed, ready to right all wrongs.

There is also an element of wish-fulfilment to it. In many songs, the king disguises himself as a peasant and lives among the common folk. Sometimes he lives among them for many years before he becomes king. Sometimes he does not even know that he is the heir to kings, and believes himself to be just a humble farm boy, until his true destiny is revealed to him.

Sometimes the name of the king is unspecified, but often the songs name him as Elessar, the first and greatest of our kings. There is, of course, a grain of truth in such tales, because it is well known that Elessar wandered through Middle Earth for many years before he became king. However, it is clearly ridiculous to suggest that he did so alone, as the songs claim. Far from being unaware of his destiny, he knew full well who he was, and he would never have risked his valuable life by wandering in the wilds without bodyguards.

And there is no evidence at all that he ever went about in disguise after he became king. Even sober historians have sometimes made this mistake. Some scholars in Gondor still put about the old, tired story that he once went alone on a secret mission behind enemy lines at a time of war. The very suggestion is ridiculous.

Not that it matters, of course. In this work, I discuss folklore, not history. Does it matter if the stories in the songs were never true? No. All that matters is that the people sing them.

* * *

All through the night they walked, beneath a moonless sky. Rain came and went, and at times the stars were visible, just patches of them between the ever-moving banks of cloud. The wind came from the east, and that at least was good. It was harder to move silently in the dark, but if they made small sounds, the wind would take them and carry them out into the vast empty space between the two armies.

But not entirely empty, of course. The elves were there, but there were other scouts of Gondor, too. Samir must also have his scouts. How many men were out in there in the darkness, each one of them thinking themselves alone?

Guided by the keen eyes of Legolas, they made good progress. They spoke seldom, only when words were needed. For the most part, Legolas communicated through touch: a gentle tap on Aragorn's arm when he saw a pair of clansmen silently watching the night. It was part of a picket line, several miles out. Aragorn and his companions slowed almost to a crawl to pass them, giving them as wide a berth as they dared. Legolas tapped two fingers on Aragorn's arm, and pointed south. Another pair watched there. There was a strung-out line of them, and doubtless more of them nearer the camp.

Nights were short in the middle of summer, with only a few hours of total darkness. Two hours before sunrise, the sky started to lighten barely perceptibly. Trees were more frequent here, and long before dawn, a few early birds started singing. They were heading east, towards the sunrise, so were safe from the risk of being seen as dark shapes against the approaching dawn, but there was still the risk of their figures being seen against the dark grey sky of the west. The land rose and fell, and Aragorn made them stay in the low places, where their cloak-covered forms would blend into the higher land behind them.

Another pair of sentries. This time Aragorn saw them, too. When they were past them, they saw the land rising up to the east in small, gentle waves. Near the top of the low hill there was a large natural terrace: a broad strip of flat land, with the rounded peak of the hill behind it to the east. Samir's army filled the terrace, but although they were less than two miles away, Aragorn and Mablung would not have seen it, had Legolas not told them that it was there. All their fires were doused, and the hill behind them ensured that they were still wrapped in darkness, despite the coming dawn in the east.

Samir was in the middle, Legolas had told them. A small stream had carved a shallow valley though the undulating ridges below. "If you follow that stream," Legolas said quietly, "you will find him."

Mablung shifted, clearly wanting to say something, but afraid to do so in case he was heard. Aragorn knew what he wanted to say, of course. The stream was an obvious approach, and would be guarded. But less well guarded than Mablung feared, Aragorn thought. They had passed two lines of sentries, with a third line still to face, but surely that was just standard caution. Samir had no reason to believe that he would be under attack. The lords under his command were more likely to be stationing guards to watch their rival lords than they were to look out for enemies approaching from the west. It was possible that Samir himself was more afraid of an attack from his own captains than he was of an attack from Gondor.

They walked another half mile, detouring to the south to avoid the third pair of sentries. Then it was time for Legolas to leave. He lingered, though, his hand on Aragorn's arm, and stayed there for the space of half a dozen breaths, before he finally nodded once, then melted away into the darkness.

They could not risk words now. Another ten steps, and another. Should he send Mablung away, too? What part could Mablung play in this? He had been a guide through terrain that he knew better than Aragorn did. He had killed a man. What could he do now but watch and listen? There was too much danger for him; too much risk that he would get executed casually without a thought. But Aragorn needed a second person, a person to carry the news, if news needed to be carried. It was safer for Mablung to stay with him than to hide himself near to the army - near enough to watch - and hope to stay unseen.

With every step, the sky grew lighter. Anyone who looked out of their window in Minas Tirith would still call it dark, but to a traveller outside, it was clear that the night was hastening towards its end. Trees appeared, black against grey, and on the terrace above, the first fires were being kindled.

They had to trust in their cloaks. More than ever before, they had to trust in the cloaks of Lórien.

They walked as fast as he dared, knowing that for once, true dawn was their enemy. When Aragorn glanced at Mablung, he saw that Mablung was looking at him, his eyes and mouth visible as smears of shadow in the paler grey of his face. Then Mablung tugged at the front of his hood, pulling it down, and his face disappeared. It could have been a spirit that walked beside him, less visible than the Dead who had followed him to the Stone of Erech, and from there to the sea.

Below the hill, the low land was far from smooth. The stream ran through a shallow valley, and there were clusters of trees and rocky outcrops, covered with yellow stonecrop. A guard was stationed where the stream emerged from the hillside, and there were others on the grassy ramparts above. There was too much light in the east now. Aragorn and Mablung were still deeply wrapped in the pre-dawn shadows, but the hill that rose behind the army was now very clear against the pale grey sky.

Aragorn paused for a moment, and closed his eyes. _There is still time,_ he thought. Still time to turn and walk away. They knew where the sentries were, and they had their cloaks. It would be a race against the coming of daylight, but it was a race he thought they would win.

 _No,_ he thought. _I have come this far. I believe that this is right; that it will work._

He had seen things in the palantír. Others things he had learnt in silent thought, because the heirs of Númenor could read secrets from men's hearts, even from afar. Scouts had brought news. Arwen agreed with him. Time to hazard everything. Time to make his choice.

Throwing back his cloak, he called out to the guard. The guard's head snapped round, and his sword came up.

* * *

The king had explained the plan. He had even explained the reasons for it. There was no need for him to do so, of course. Mablung was a soldier of Gondor, and a soldier of Gondor obeyed his captain without question. A captain was under no obligation to explain the reasons for his orders. He commanded, and his men obeyed. And as it was with any captain, how much more was it with a king!

But he had explained. More than that, he had almost seemed to want Mablung to ask questions, but Mablung had limited himself to questions about the practicalities of the enterprise. He had not questioned the reasons. He had not…

Oh, but he had, of course. At night, when on watch, he had wondered what ending lay ahead of them. His king had to live, but Mablung…? No, Mablung had long since resolved that if any dying was going to happen, it would be him. He had faith in his king, but it was best to be prepared. On the eve of battle, every wise soldier had to prepare himself for death. It was a fool who closed his mind to that possibility.

And at night, when asleep, he had dreamed. Dreams in which he let his king down. Dreams of the dead from the outposts, crying for vengeance that did not come. "You betrayed me!" gasped the man who for a short while, had been his captain. "You went into the wilderness and you-"

 _No_. He flexed his hands, opening them wide, fingers splayed, then curling them tight again. He had to keep them far away from his sword. The time for stealth was over, and it was time to reveal himself. He parted his cloak, revealing the travel-stained shirt below. He shook his head slightly, causing the hood to inch back, revealing his face.

"Ho, fellow!" the king was saying, in the language of the Easterlings. His voice was imperious: the voice of a man who had never in his life been disobeyed. Then he said something about news for Samir. He snapped a question: something about the front and the middle. Is Samir in his usual place in front and centre of the camp? Was that it?

The guard nodded. The king was almost on him now, his hands clearly visible, nowhere near his sword. He held something in one hand; something that he showed to the guard. It was the token again, Mablung thought. It was the token that had failed last time.

But this time, it seemed not to be failing. The king sounded so imperious, it was all Mablung could do not to fall to his knees in terrified obedience. In his rightful guise as king of Gondor, he had never sounded like this! Mablung had wanted to kneel before him then, but never in dread.

"Would you hinder me?" he thought the king was saying, and then something about the three lines of sentries having let them pass, and he was tired, _tired,_ of being asked to give his credentials like a common man. What right did the guard have to question him when he hadn't even seen him, not until he had called out and made himself known?

"Yes," the guard stammered. "Yes, lord," and let him pass.

And all Mablung could do was watch. All Mablung could do was follow him.

* * *

The guard at the top of the slope did not even question them. He had heard the exchange with the guard below, and waved them past without a word.

 _So easy,_ Aragorn thought. _Can it be so easy?_

There was a weakness at the heart of the clansmen's way of ruling. Their lords ruled by fear. Through loyalty, too, but it was a loyalty won and enforced by physical domination over the people they ruled. The merest hint of disobedience could earn a beating, or worse. Play the imperious lord, and men were too afraid to question. The near darkness helped, of course, and the fact that by deliberately drawing the guard's attention, Aragorn had made it clear that he had nothing to hide.

 _But are things that different in Gondor?_ Aragorn thought. He wanted to believe that the loyalty of the people was given freely and not coerced, but perhaps the end result was much the same. Gondor had its own hierarchy of obedience, and an ordinary soldier could well show the same reluctance to disobey a stranger who spoke like a lord and claimed the right to command him.

But it was not the time to question such things. They were on the terrace now, and Samir's compound lay before them. A pair of guards were watching them, hands on their blades.

Walk past them, Aragorn wondered, or hazard another throw of the dice?

Another step. Another.

He raised his empty hands, and spoke quietly to them, knowing that his voice would reach them. As Legolas had reported, Samir slept away from the rest of the army, and there was little sound here. Sunrise was still half an hour away, and thin cloud covered the sky, reducing the light yet further. At midsummer, no army rose with the dawn. Apart from the guards and a few early risers, everyone was still asleep.

"I do not need to explain myself," he said. "The worthless ones down below were satisfied. I must speak with Samir. I will do so openly. If you do not trust me…" He said it with scorn, with disgust. "If you do not trust me, then you have my leave to cover us with your bows. As you can see, I have no blade in my hands."

They let him pass. One drew a bow and nocked an arrow to the string, and the other almost followed them, but faltered after three steps, clearly remembering that he had been commanded not to leave his post. _Ah yes,_ Aragorn thought, _there is a lesson here for Gondor, too._ A few low tents were scattered across the guarded compound, but at the centre there a great wain, covered with tented cloth. Wooden steps had been set up at its rear, leading to a parting in the cloth. Warriors stood on either side of the steps, and a third man was dimly visible, standing on the edge of the terrace overlooking the lower land to the west.

How many eyes were watching them now?

No matter. It made no difference.

Aragorn began to walk towards the steps, and the skin prickled at the back of his neck: a certain sign that an arrow was trained upon him. Then something else stirred within him: a whisper of knowledge coming to him beyond all doubt.

Instead of walking to the wain, he turned to the left, and headed towards the man who stood alone on the lip of the slope. It was too dark to see his face clearly, but even in the shadows his profile was clear. The palantír had shown him a man with a face like this, riding at the head of his army.

Aragorn approached him; almost stopped, then hazarded two more steps. "Lord Samir," Aragorn said, and the man turned towards him. "I have come to speak with you on a matter of the utmost importance. As you can see, I have no weapons in my hand, just a sword at my side, sheathed. My companion is similarly unarmed. More than a dozen of your men know that I am here. Some of them even now have arrows trained on my back. I ask only this: that before you command them to shoot, you let me speak until I have said all that there is to say."

Samir tilted his head to one side, as if in idle question of a matter of no real importance at all. "And should I listen?"

With the guards in the valley, he had played the lord. Samir might have expected him to play the supplicant, and beg to be heard. Instead, Aragorn merely spoke quietly, stating it as a simple fact.

"Yes," he said. "Yes, you must."

* * *

Samir. This was Samir. This was the lord of the Easterlings, who had commanded his men to kill the people of the outposts. Their blood was on his hands, and…

 _No_ , Mablung tried to tell himself. Deaths happened in war. Sometimes in the heat of battle, people died who should not have died. Sometimes a distant captain could give a command, and an over-zealous subordinate could exceed his duty. He had seen it in Ithilien. Three times had Captain Faramir had to dismiss a man for being over-cruel to a captive, and revelling too much in slaying. Faramir bore no guilt for that. Samir might not…

Samir. He clenched his fists tightly at his side, and followed his king. He had a cruel face, this lord of the Easterlings, with a sharp nose and deep-set eyes. Then, when he looked again, he had to admit that there was nothing intrinsically cruel about the face; it was just that he expected it to seem that way. He was older than Mablung had expected: about the same age as the king appeared, although Mablung knew that the king was far older. He was not tall, and his long dark hair was threaded with many beads. Only his forearms showed beneath his clothes, and a swordsman's muscles showed through the lean flesh.

 _Samir,_ he thought. _Enemy._ But his king had explained the plan to him, and he had to trust his king. He knew the realities of war. Sometimes you had to listen when all you wanted to do was attack. Sometimes you had to show mercy, because pursuing justice would only lead to further deaths.

 _But…!_

He followed. Of course he followed. _Why am I here?_ he wanted to ask, but the king could not answer him. The king could not even look at him.

But if they killed him, Mablung swore... If they made even the slightest move to kill him, then they would have to kill Mablung first.

* * *

Circled with lanterns, they had no place to hide. Aragorn sat where he was told, on a low wooden bench deep inside the covered wain. Mablung was on the floor near his feet, and no matter where either of them turned, the lantern light fell starkly on their faces. Halfway along the wain, Samir sat on a simple stool, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees.

"You came with just one man?" There was scorn in his voice, thinly veiled.

"I did," Aragorn confirmed, offering no explanation or defence. This was a culture where the worth of a lord was judged by the size of his entourage of warriors, but it was also one that taught its boys to hunt alone. Their songs told of mighty war bands, but also of lone heroes, who braved great odds alone.

"But this is my hall," Samir said, smiling ironically as he gestured to the draped canvas above him, "and so I choose to listen to you with twice your number: four to your two." The others were already in place, silent at the dark end of the wain. There was a sharp-faced woman, wiry and lean. A young warrior crouched in front of Samir, a naked sword in his hand. Behind Samir, almost invisible by the sealed entrance flap, there was an old man whose head was turned slightly away.

There was a risk in replying, but Aragorn thought it was best to take it. "That is your right," he agreed.

"Of course it is my right," Samir said, his voice as cold and sharp as a blade. At his feet, the warrior half-raised his sword.

Aragorn gave no reaction, merely letting Samir hold his gaze. It was a fine line that he had to walk. He could not be too provocative, but neither could he seem meek. He tolerated Samir's gaze for longer than most men would endure, then looked away when the time was right.

"You spoke as a lord when you gave commands to my men," Samir said. His eyes were keen, sparks glinting in his shadowed face. The beads in his hair were shining. "You speak our tongue with the accent of our eastern clans. Until recently, we have been a scattered people, a people ruled by many lords. Few of my men know the faces of lords that are not their own." He paused. Aragorn waited. He knew what was coming. "I do," Samir said.

"I expected nothing less," Aragorn said. "I have made no false claims."

The old man was looking down at his folded hands, but clearly listening, listening to every word. The woman was angry. The warrior twisted his wrist just a fraction, making the sword catch the light.

"Where do you come from?" Samir demanded, quiet and completely still.

"You know that, I think," Aragorn said.

"Yes." Samir spoke this time in the common tongue of the west. "You come from Gondor. You come from my enemies."

Aragorn could sense Mablung reacting, but could see, too, that he kept his reaction from being painted vividly on his face. Samir would have seen it, though. Mablung was at home in the wilderness, and good with the sword and the bow, but this was a very different game. This battle was waged with words, and in the silences between them.

"You don't deny it," Samir said, in his own tongue once more. "You offer no explanation, no defence."

"Why deny the truth when it is known already?" Aragorn said. "Explanation I will give you. Defence, I owe you none." The warrior disliked that, as Aragorn had known he would. He glanced at Samir as if awaiting a command, but Samir remained still, his face giving nothing away. "It is not a crime to be born in another land. It is not a crime to be loyal to the cause of your fathers. War makes enemies of men who might, in another world, be as close as brothers. It is not a crime-"

"It is a crime-!" the woman spat, but Samir silenced her with a raised hand.

"It is not a crime to be loyal to the king of Gondor," Samir said, "when you are within Gondor's bounds. But when you sneak unseen like a spy, like an assassin, into your enemy commander's own camp…"

"No war has been declared between us," Aragorn said, and moved on before the statement could be contradicted. "I issued no threats. I have allowed you to take our swords from us. I announced myself at the door to your hall like a visitor in good faith. No guards stopped me until I declared myself."

Samir reacted: just a barely perceptible tightening of the muscles of his face. It concerned him deeply, Aragorn thought, to discover that two men had been able to approach so closely without being seen. His confidence in his own men had been weakened. He might have to reconsider his tactics; to accept that his enemies had greater skill than he had thought.

"I came to talk," Aragorn said. "Merely that. This was the only way."

"Your king could have asked to talk under the flag of truce," Samir said. "Such things are honoured even in Gondor, I believe. Did he not agree to speak to the emissary of Sauron before the Black Gate, and no blows were exchanged until the talking was at an end?"

"He considered it," Aragorn said, "but he knows that the lords under your command are eager for glory and battle. Such is their love for you that they will do anything to win your praise. They would all wish to strike the first blow and claim the first kill."

The warrior wanted to protest at that, but Samir stopped him. Almost hidden in the shadows, the old man seemed to be smiling. Samir openly chuckled. "Politely said." He did not deny it, though. His command of these warring lords had been hard won and was but tenuously held. He could declare a truce and ride forward to negotiate with Aragorn, but would all the lords under his command adhere to its terms? Aragorn had considered it carefully, and feared that the answer was no. "And so he sent you alone, to treat with me out of sight of the over-eager lords who love me so much." He leant forward, all laughter gone. "Do you have the authority to speak for him?"

"I do," Aragorn said. He would have provided a name for himself if he had been asked: another name to add to the many he had gone by over the long years of his life.

But Samir did not ask. "Why should I trust you?" he demanded. "Why should I talk to you? You men of Gondor hate us. Our words mean nothing to you. Easterlings, you call us. To you, we are of no more worth than the orc scum of Mordor: to be killed without a thought. Many of us fought against you, but you won. You won, and so we are nothing."

"Yes," breathed the woman. "Yes."

"You are not nothing to me," Aragorn said. "I came. I did not have to."

"You came because your king commanded you, surely?" the old man said. It was the first thing he had said.

"He commands willing men," Aragorn said, "and on a mission of such importance, men have the chance to refuse. But he did not have to send me. He did so because he considers you worth listening to. He did not treat with the 'orc scum' of Mordor. And," he said, emphasising it slightly to forestall any interruption, "I learnt your tongue. You cannot dismiss a whole people as worthless when you speak their tongue."

He wondered if Samir would respond in the common tongue of the west, but Samir made no comment. Instead, in his own tongue, he said, "Yet still you give me no reasons why I should believe any word you say. You are here to gain some advantage to your king, that much is plain."

Outside, the sky was lightening, the canvas slowly turning paler. There were distant sounds of the army waking up, but few of the sounds were close. There were guards outside the wain, there had to be, but they were silent and still.

"As to why he wished someone to come," Aragorn said, "this is not yet the time to speak of that. As to why I was the one to come…" He let out a breath, and shook his head slowly. He abandoned all calculation; let honesty be painted upon his face. "I speak your tongue. I speak your tongue because I have known your people. I know that not all your lords followed Sauron. I know that those who did so, did so for their own reasons, and that when he fell, they mourned the loss of the glory they hoped he would bring them, but they did not mourn him."

"We mourned our _dead_!" spat the woman.

"Yes," Aragorn said, raising a conciliatory hand. "So did we, and ours, too, were very great." He looked at Samir. "I know that your clan swore no oaths to Sauron, and suffered as a result."

"You know too many things," said the old man, leaning forward. "How?"

Then Samir held up a hand, stopping Aragorn before he could reply. "Are you a traitor to your king? Is that what you claim? You come to me with this tale of how much you sympathise with us, with our plight. Is that your game?"

"I am no traitor," Aragorn said. "My life is pledged to Gondor."

"And your death?" said the warrior, raising his sword.

"Of course," Aragorn said calmly. Mablung reacted, unable to stop himself. Aragorn touched his shoulder with his fingertips, steadying him. He returned to the old man's question, although he kept his gaze upon Samir. "Many years ago," he said, "a traveller from the west spent a while amongst your people. He wished to discover if it was true what men were saying: that they were turning to Sauron; that they were evil beyond all hope of redemption."

"Who said that?" the woman demanded.

Once again, Aragorn held up his hand. "It was many years ago: sixty, or nearly so. He found that they were not evil; few men are. He found that some of the lords had indeed pledged their clans to the service of Sauron. He tried to stop that where he could. Afterwards, he liked to think that he might have slowed it, for a few years, at least. But in the end…" He shook his head, smiling: a storyteller recounting a distant tale. "In the end, he was betrayed, or perhaps he betrayed himself by some mistake. He was younger than he would later be, and less wise. He was captured. He escaped, but he was wounded. Another traveller from the west - a chance-met companion - heard of his plight and helped him escape, and together they reached a cave, a narrow cleft between two great rocky outcrops."

The old man was silent, barely breathing. In the growing light from outside, it was clear that he was almost blind. He was trying to look at Aragorn, but was missing him by many inches, seeing only the lantern beside him.

"And there a boy found him," Aragorn said quietly. "A boy from the clan of the Red Sun, busy with his Trial of Manhood. He helped this traveller, although he did not have to. And the traveller never forgot."

"Sixty years ago…" rasped the old man, the old man who had once been a boy so desperate to prove himself as a man. Aragorn had not asked his name at the time, but he had discovered it afterwards, when necessity had forced him to make one more visit to the east. Bedir was his name. Bedir, who had gone on to lead his clan when they were forced into the wilderness as exiles, because they refused to bow to Sauron. Bedir, who, old now, and blind, could no longer lead a warrior people, but who sat at the right hand of the one who did, and gave him counsel.

Aragorn's scouts had found the name for him, and from that tiny seed, this whole wild scheme had been born. Aragorn could often read the hearts of men, but on this, he had no idea how Bedir would react. It was as if the old man's blindness kept him hidden from him, by veiling the truths that most men showed in their eyes. Would Bedir recognise himself in the story? Oh, but he did; his reaction made that plain. It was a story he had told himself, too, for Samir also plainly knew who Aragorn was talking about. But would Bedir admit it? Would he acknowledge the connection, or let it pass without a word?

"Sixty years, or nearly so," Aragorn said, "but never forgotten."

"No," said the old man, whose hair was thin now, but who still wore his golden beads. He brought his hand up to his face: a strangely vulnerable gesture, as if he half expected to find the smooth skin of a boy, and not the wrinkled face of a scarred old man. "I imagine it was not."

* * *

"Never forgotten," the man from Gondor had said. Bedir's skin was dry beneath his trembling fingers. _Who…?_ he wanted to ask. _Who are you?_

He could deny it, of course. Samir knew the truth, but would let him play this any way he wished. He could deny that the story meant anything to him, although he had told it for years, and every man, woman and child in the Red Sun clan had heard him tell it. In the years of their exile, they had cherished all stories. Afterwards… Ah, afterwards…

He chuckled to himself. Did this stranger from Gondor know how the story had ended for Bedir? Did the stranger from Gondor know what had grown out of the seed that the wounded traveller had planted that day in the cave?

No need to tell him, of course. He could say nothing; let the story pass without another word.

But it was too late for that already, of course. This lord from Gondor knew who he was, and had known long before he had started telling his story. As Bedir's sight had failed him, he had grown more skilled at hearing the truths that were revealed by a man's tone of voice. He could still profess ignorance, and see what the man from Gondor chose to do next, when confronted with…

 _No,_ he thought, his fingers kneading the scar on his face. _No, there has been too much lying in this world of ours._

"You know it was me," Bedir said. "You knew from the start."

He had been near-blind that day, too, he remembered. Evening had been fast approaching, and the man from Gondor had been deep inside the dark cleft between the rocks, his face barely visible in the gloom.

"I did," the man conceded. "Never forgotten, I said. It would a churlish man indeed forgot such kindness."

"What was he to you?" Samir demanded. "Your father?"

But Bedir was already shaking his head. Almost sixty years gone, and he had grown from a boy of fifteen to an old man. He had no memory of the man's voice, and even if he had seen his face, he would have forgotten it by now. He remembered the incident, but only because he had retold it so many times; only because of the lesson he had learnt from it. Who could remember with any clarity a voice once heard so many years ago?

But now… Now… His skill was with voices now. He could read truths; truths that were meant to stay hidden.

"It was you," he breathed. "You." He stood up, and walked forward. He knew how the wain was arranged, and he had heard them all speak, and marked their position. He could no longer see faces, but he could see the lanterns and the shapes of those who sat in the midst of them. Samir made no move to stop him as he made his way to the man from Gondor. The lord sat very still, but his liegeman sucked in a sharp breath, his feet scraping against the wooden floor. Bedir felt the lord's face, feeling no more wrinkles than he would feel on Samir's own face. His hair was limp from the earlier rain, but it was clear that it had not yet started to thin with age.

"How…?" Samir breathed. He hadn't meant to say it. Perhaps he had already thrown away any advantage that Samir might have gained in this encounter, but… He let out a breath; took a faltering step backwards, and then another. Samir stopped him there, a hand on his back. "How…?"

"The men of the west have longer lifespans than other men," said the lord from Gondor. "You must know this."

Yes. Yes. He had heard this; heard it and dismissed it. That was the kings of old: proud lords from beyond the sea, all dead now. If this was true, what else was true? Elf lords who fought for Gondor, with magic at their command? An army of the dead? Their own dead, sent to fight against them? The women feared such a thing, and raged against it. Men with few beads in their hair feared it, but Samir was beyond such fear.

"Was it…?" Oh, but he had lost so much by now, entirely losing his composure. Samir's hand was hard at his back. "The old man? Was he in truth a chance-met companion? When I was older, afterwards, it occurred to me that he might not be."

"I had known him then for some years," said the lord of Gondor, "but neither of us knew that the other was travelling so near. He heard of my plight and came to investigate, but until he got there, he didn't know it was me. So it was the truth, in a way."

"But in another way, a lie." Bedir said it harshly, but softened it with laughing. "And is he still alive, although he looked like an old man then?"

"He has departed," the lord said, as Samir pressed his hand to Bedir's back, telling him that this exchange, whether good or ill, had come to an end. Bedir obeyed, although he did not have to. Samir owed his position as much to Bedir's influence as to his own undoubted gifts.

"Pleasing as this reunion is," Samir said, and his tone showed Bedir that he was more disconcerted by this than he wanted the lord to know, "I have to ask what you hope to gain by it."

"Nothing," said the lord, "beyond an indication that I come in good faith, and I feel a debt of gratitude to Bedir here, and I do not idly betray such debts."

"But I have no debt," Samir said.

 _But I do,_ Bedir thought, as he tottered back to his seat. It was harder on the way back, walking away from the light to the shadows by the door. He had to find his seat with his hand before he could let himself sit down. For him, his whole life had started then. Bedir had told the lord of Gondor how their Trial of Manhood worked, and how old friends were set against old friends, and only one of them could win. The stranger had been wounded, of course, and probably only half-listening, but he had asked a stray question: what would happen if they worked together? Bedir had never forgotten that. He had tried it the very next day, and been rejected, but it had also inspired him to forget about fighting with his rivals, and concentrate on his goal. Because of that, he had emerged from the Trial with the golden beads of the victor. Everything had come from that. Everything.

"And I have heard that story before," Samir was saying. "He tells it often, does this old man of mine. You planted a seed in his mind that day. Did you know that? You should work together, you said. You will be ten times stronger if you stopped bickering amongst yourself, and worked together as one."

"Yes," said the lord of Gondor. He knew what was coming; Bedir knew that suddenly beyond doubt. He knew what was coming, but Samir had not realised that. He was astute and gifted, but he was too proud, and at times that made him blinder than Bedir.

"He never forgot that," Samir said, "through all the dark years, when our clan eked out a living in the wilderness in our great wains. I grew up hearing that tale, and while he told it as a story, I decided to make it a reality. And so we have laid aside our differences, we who have always fought amongst ourselves. We have united, and this is the end of it."

"What?" asked the lord of Gondor, and how could Samir not hear it? He was saying what he knew Samir wanted him to say. But not with malice, Bedir thought. No, not that.

"We have united," said Samir, "and what do we do with our newly formed strength? What do we do with the strength that you taught us? We come against Gondor and we will crush her armies like grass beneath our feet."


	17. A Matter of Trust

This is the second of today's two chapters. There will be two tomorrow, too.

* * *

 **Chapter seventeen: A Matter of Trust**

From _Trials of Manhood: A Story of the East,_ based on the true story of Bedir of the Red Sun, as imagined by Thanniel Scrivener, F.A. 1657

It was the flies that first betrayed the wounded man. Without the flies, Bedir would never have found him.

Would anything have turned out differently if he had not?

Perhaps not.

That was how he told the story afterwards, anyway, in the dark times when stories were all that was left to them. He would smile ruefully by the camp fire, the movement pulling at the blade scar on his cheek. Faces surrounded him, eyes gleaming in the flickering light. Young men's faces, all, who had never known a settled life. Wolves howled in the darkness beyond the circle of their wains.

Later, much later, he would tell it differently again. He was old then, and his braided hair was brittle and grey. He was more than half blind, the fire in the hearth just a faint glow, with dark faceless shapes that passed before it, and stopped, sometimes, and spoke his name.

Would anything have turned out differently if he had not seen those flies?

Perhaps, he said then, as he dreamed of the clans uniting under a proud lord who heeded him. Perhaps.

But later, even later, the story changed again. Would his life have ended differently had he had not seen those flies?

"Oh yes," he would say. "Oh yes."

* * *

Aragorn showed no reaction. Samir's voice rose towards the end, and he finished it ringingly, loud enough, surely, for the guards outside to hear. The warrior grinned, raising his sword. "Yes," the woman was breathing. "Yes!" Only Bedir looked troubled, back in the shadows by the entrance.

"You will not," Aragorn said quietly, when it was time to speak. "You will try, but Gondor is too strong. Why lose another generation before the walls of Minas Tirith?"

"You threaten me?" Samir said.

"Should I not?" Aragorn smiled. "You threaten us."

"But unlike you, I do so in the heart of my army." Samir spread his hands, indicating the world outside. "You do so alone." Then suddenly he laughed, and from the reaction of Mablung and the others, they had not expected this at all. "You dare do so, even when alone. I think I like you."

They prized audacity, did these warriors of the clans, but their lords also demanded humility. Truly it was a hard line to walk. Aragorn had gambled. His bloodline had the gift of reading the hearts of men, but sometimes even he had to hazard everything on the roll of a die.

"But I have killed men that I like, ere now," said Samir, his laughter cutting off as sharply as with a knife.

"I do not come to threaten you idly," Aragorn said, reacting neither to the laughter nor the threat. "An army from Gondor lies two days' march away, as your scouts have doubtless told you. Its numbers are as great as yours. It has evaded the parties of horsemen that you left in its path. It knows where you are and knows your movements. This you know. The fact that I found you so easily has already told you that much."

And this, too, was a gamble. They had captured several scouts and spies who were bringing news of the Gondorian army to Samir, but it was too much to hope that all such scouts had been intercepted. They had kept the news from breaking too soon, perhaps, but they could not have kept it from breaking at all. He might have only known about the Gondorian army for hours, but he knew. Surely he knew.

"What can we gain from fighting," Aragorn asked, "but the needless deaths of so many of our fighting men? We lost many in the War. You lost-" Samir's eyes blazed, daring him to continue. For the space of half a breath, Aragorn considered backing down, but he sensed that audacity would serve him best. "You lost more," he said.

The woman sucked in a sharp breath, and her hands were tightly clenched in her lap, fingers digging in deeply.

"So you would have us throw down our weapons and walk away?" Samir demanded. "Is that what you come here to ask of us? You _dare_?"

"No," said Aragorn, as he took another risk. "Your lords are eager to fight. Such is their love for you-"

"That they will seek glory in arms to impress me. Yes. Yes." Samir was needled; Aragorn could tell. He was all too aware of the truth. Samir had united the clans by promising victory in war. If he backed away from that war, he would lose them forever. And Samir was only too aware that Aragorn knew this; knew this, but was forbearing through politeness from mentioning it. Samir hated this, but because of the veneer of politeness, could not quite bring himself to challenge Aragorn about it.

"I do not ask you to walk away," Aragorn said. "I do not ask that your men return meekly to their homes. I would never ask that."

"What, then? What do you ask of me?" An expression of anger passed across Samir's face; it was light enough outside for Aragorn to see it. "You are in no position to ask me anything. I could have you seized now as a hostage and put in chains. What gifts will your king offer me to earn your safe return?"

"What lord has ever turned from his path out of concern for a liegeman?" It was the clansmen's way of things, he knew. It was all too easy to see other cultures as mirrors of your own, and to think that because something was true amongst your people, it was true everywhere else.

"But they are soft in Gondor, I hear," Samir said, "and their king is over-fond of those under his command. But not a hostage, then. I could have you killed now: killed, and forgotten."

"You could," Aragorn said. "I would merely request that you allow my man, here, to return to the king who commands the army, to tell him how things ended for me. He would pass on your words. Your…" He smiled, just a slight curving of one side of his mouth. "Your threats."

"And what are threats if they are not heard?" Samir returned his smile, and the anger seemed to be forgotten, but it was still there, Aragorn knew, lurking beneath the smile. But the smile was genuine, too, he felt, and no mere act.

"Why have we come to this?" Aragorn asked. Outside, a trumpet blew, little different from the trumpets of Gondor. "No war was declared between us."

"No war?" said Samir quietly. "No war?" Through the canvas, the light of dawn showed Bedir intently listening. "The king of Gondor declared war with his actions."

Aragorn thought he knew what he meant. He pretended to misunderstand. "We merely established outposts in the Brown Lands," he said. "They are hundreds of miles to the west of any lands your people have ever claimed as theirs." He held Samir's gaze; made his voice steely. "And yet you destroyed them."

"An act of retaliation," said Samir.

"Killed them," Aragorn accused. "Men, women and children. They were no threat to you. They were in land that was once part of Gondor. Land that for thousands of years, nobody had owned or claimed. Land which was never yours."

At his feet, Mablung's eyes were blazing. Aragorn made no attempt to stop him. Let Samir see the hatred! Whatever else he did today, Aragorn would not let the dead lie forgotten.

"It is because of that outrage that the army comes against you," Aragorn said. "Had you left the outposts alone, Gondor would not have come against you-"

"Pah!" spat the warrior. The woman was half on her feet, but subsided without Samir having to look at her. Samir, for his part, sat completely still, making no more attempt to silence his followers than Aragorn had made to stop Mablung.

"You have provoked the wrath of Gondor," Aragorn said. "That is what her king does not understand." It was a lie, of course. Or not quite a lie, because everything else was just supposition: the reports of scouts mixed with the tale told by the palantír and his own insights, obtained after deep thought in darkened rooms. "Why kill two outposts that were never any threat to you, when by doing so, you prompted an army of thousands to come against you?"

"It was that Hasad!" shouted the warrior, turning to Samir. "You should have sent me!"

"Quiet!" Samir shouted, striking him hard across the cheek. "Look to your duty. _Watch them_!"

Aragorn kept himself completely still, lest anyone accuse him of trying to take advantage of Samir's bodyguard's distraction. Mablung, he was relieved to see, did exactly the same. He wondered what Samir would do now. The warrior had offered him a way to extricate himself from blame. The lord he had put in command of the raiding party had exceeded his orders. Instead of laying down a challenge, he had committed an atrocity.

Was it true? It could well be. If so, would Samir admit it? No, Aragorn thought. No, he would not. He would far rather be accused of murdering children than admit that his lords were more attached to their own glory than they were to obeying his commands.

"You talk of atrocities?" Samir hissed, then made a visible attempt to compose himself. Bedir's head was bowed. He knew what he had heard; knew, and did not like it. "The king of Gondor tried to have me murdered. That is what started this. _That_."

"He did not," Aragorn said quietly. "I know this for a fact. He did not. If anyone has told you otherwise, they lied."

"We knew that Gondor would come against us one day," Bedir said. He had recovered from his earlier confusion, and his voice was composed. He was saving Samir from himself, Aragorn knew; giving him a few moments to compose himself and become again the smooth, unruffled leader, who never showed any uncalculated emotion. "Of course she would. Her king claims to be Lord of the West, not just lord of Gondor. Such arrogance!"

Aragorn said nothing. There was nothing that he could say.

"He plans to take back again all the ancient lands of Gondor," Bedir said. "Gondor once spread even to the shores of Rhûn, either through direct rule, or through puppet rules who bowed to her king. This we have learnt in recent years, but we do not remember it. Our people have long memories. We sing the songs of our forefathers and their forefathers before them. We like to think that our memories are as old as time, although they are not, because there are barrows in our lands that are built in ways that are strange to us." He raised his head, and for a moment it was as if his eyes could see again, more deeply than Samir's. "Our songs remember no time when our lands were not our own, but many thousands of years ago, or so Gondor claims, the strangers who lived in our lands bowed to the king of Gondor."

Aragorn could not deny it. "Many thousands of years ago, they did."

"So we knew he would come against us sooner or later," Bedir said, "and so we resolved to be ready. We resolved to stop him. Why should he rule us?"

"Why indeed?" Aragorn said. "Even in Minas Tirith, he wore no crown until the people agreed that his claim was just and asked him to take the throne."

"Pretty words," Samir said, apparently composed again, but there was too much light outside to entirely hide his expression. "I say again: the king of Gondor tried to have me murdered. You claimed it a lie. What say you now?"

Another quick touch on Mablung's shoulder, reminding him not to react. _I should not have brought him_ , he thought, but it had already become clear that it had been the right decision. 'You came with just one man?' Samir had asked, wanting to scorn him because his entourage was so small. A lord with a bodyguard could pass as an envoy worth treating with. A man alone was a spy.

"I did not say that you were lying," Aragorn said. "I said that you were misinformed."

"I was there," Samir said coldly. "I was not misinformed."

"Seventeen days ago," Aragorn said, "a man from the clan of the Red Sun tried to murder the king of Gondor."

"You lie!" cried the warrior, surging to his feet. "When my lord kills him, he will kill him face to face in honorable battle!" His blade came to rest against Aragorn's breast, pressing just hard enough that it would have begun to break the skin, had Aragorn not been wearing mithril beneath his shirt. Even as he did so, Samir was shouting a command. Even as he did so, Aragorn was squeezing Mablung's shoulder, squeezing it hard, demanding that he made no rash move. Mablung's fury was evident, though. Every muscle was taut, and his eyes blazed with hatred.

The warrior subsided, returning to his place at Samir's feet, but Aragorn noticed that this time, Samir did not strike him. Samir wanted Aragorn to see this, he thought. Next time the warrior attacked him, it would be because Samir willed it.

"You must have wondered how I got the token," Aragorn said. "It was the badge of his clan, found on his body afterwards, when he died in the attempt."

Samir shook his head, and once more his composure was leaving him. "You lie."

"Why would I?" Aragorn asked. "If it is a lie, it is one that is only worth telling to the people of Gondor, to rouse them to hate you and all your men. Why would I lie to you, who knows the truth? Why ever would I lie?"

Samir glanced at Bedir, but Bedir's face was turned away. "The man who tried to kill me…" Samir began.

"Failed in his task," Aragorn said. "Failed at the last moment, and publicly so. Shall I guess? You put him to torture, and he was quick to talk. He said that he came from Gondor, and then you killed him. It was all the answer you needed. You had united the clans by warning them that Gondor would bring war upon you in the future. Now they saw that the time for war had come. They clamoured for war, and now you could give them what they wanted."

" _Gondor_ gave us war!" Samir shouted. Bedir's face was still turned away.

"You accuse the king of Gondor of sending an assassin against you in a blatant act of war," Aragorn said. "I deny this. I accuse a man of your clan of trying to assassinate the king of Gondor. You do not deny this, although your man did." He looked down at his chest. "Quite insistently." But the time for smiling was long gone. Samir was far past that now. "But I say to you now: there was something strange about the assassination. The king saw that from the start."

"What was strange?" Bedir asked, when Samir said nothing. He was facing them again, and this time his blind eyes were looking directly at Aragorn, although they were a few inches away from finding his eyes.

"He was your agent; that much was plain. He had the look of it, and he was cut with your knife." His hand rose to his throat, brushing the place with his fingers. "But the attack was thwarted loudly and publicly, and by people unknown. Somebody took great pains to ensure that the news spread throughout Minas Tirith that your people were behind the attack. And lest they forgot, there were other attacks in the days that followed, and at one of them, at least, someone took great pains to ensure that your people were implicated."

"It is a lie," said the warrior, and, "Why tell me this?" asked Samir.

"It is the truth," Aragorn said, in answer to both. "Now, it is possible that you are playing a double game. It is possible that you set your agent up to fail, and that you deliberately set out to inflame the people of Minas Tirith to go to war against you. It is possible that you wanted us to send as large an army as we could, so you could destroy us. But you cannot destroy us."

The warrior's sword was up again. The woman's breath was hissing through her teeth. "Samir," Aragorn said. "Samir," and he turned as much of his will upon the man as he dared to unveil. "Let me speak freely, no risk of retaliation."

Samir opened his mouth; closed it again. Almost he faltered and glanced at Bedir, but he salvaged that much of his pride, at least. "You can," he said. He struck the warrior down, a casual, almost unthinking blow. However this turned out, Aragorn reminded himself, the clansmen's ways were not the ways of Gondor. They would have to tolerate many differences if they were ever to come to an understanding. "You can," Samir said, making it a command.

"You cannot destroy us," Aragorn said. "Our army equals yours, and it is made up of men who defeated the fathers and uncles and brothers of your army, not so many years ago. You can maul us, yes, but we will maul you, but we have more men than you. We have sent only a part of our strength against you. Even if you fought your way through our army, the tattered remains of your force would have to march through Ithilien, because there is no other way round. It is a narrow land, and it will be well defended. We will have ships on the river, and even if you win through to the Pelennor before Minas Tirith, where your fathers died, you will have to face our walls of stone."

"A threat?" Samir said. "I thought you said you uttered no threats."

"No threat," said Aragorn. "Just the truth." He said it with utmost confidence, and although he tried to conceal it, the warrior blanched. If Samir blanched, he kept it hidden, turning his face away into the last few shadows that still lingered in the interior of the covered wain. "But you must know this," Aragorn said quietly. "I do not believe that you would have willingly incited this war."

The woman sprang to her feet. "Gondor tried to kill-"

"No," Aragorn said. "Gondor did not. Just as Lord Samir did not try to kill the king of Gondor. Someone is playing a game with both of us."

"Who?" It was Bedir again, asking the questions that Samir's pride would not allow him to ask.

"Someone who wants us to sap each other's strength in fruitless war, while they creep up behind and take the lands we have left undefended."

"Who?" asked Bedir again.

"Umbar," said Aragorn. "It is Umbar that moves against Gondor."

"Umbar is far away," Bedir said. "We have no quarrel with Umbar."

"But you have a quarrel with the tribes to your east," Aragorn said. "Messengers from Umbar have been seen riding frequently between their own lands the lands of those tribes." Or seen once; that was the truth of it. Seen once in a clouded glimpse in the palantír, but that glimpse alone had been enough to shape a picture around.

Samir was shaking his head. He wanted to deny it, that much was plain. He wanted to react with fury, but he was too astute for that. A foolish man could not have risen to the position he had won. A man who let himself be ruled by affronted pride would never have kept command for so long.

"We will need proof," Bedir said, "before we consider believing you."

"Send messengers to your lands back home," Aragorn said. "Send scouts into the east. Urge them to muster any strength that remains to you, in case my warning is true."

"I thought you would command me to have my army flee back home like a flock of panicked goats," Samir said bitterly. He emphasised the word 'command.' The danger was far from over, Aragorn reminded himself. Samir could still lash out. He could still refuse to believe, or believe, but wish to kill the messenger.

"Who am I to give commands?" Aragorn said, with a smile. "I offer no advice. I only ask that our two armies do not engage until the truth has been demonstrated one way or the other. But I do say this: although the king of Gondor has sent as many men against you as you have sent against him, he has left many more behind, throughout the southern fiefs. Even if our army falls to yours, we have a hope of defeating Umbar."

 _Do you have the same hope?_ He left it unsaid, knowing that saying it would be a risk too far. But he knew that the clans had suffered grievous losses on the Pelennor, and this was very likely the whole of their strength. With every day that passed, it was harder for Samir to keep control of them. He had always been slowed by dissent. Some lords were eager for conquest, but as they crossed the Brown Lands, there would be many who remembered that the last time they had journeyed that way, most of them had died. How much easier would it be to maintain control if he took them back home, to defend their own hearths and their families!

None of that could be said out loud, of course. He had been given leave to speak the truth, but although Samir was willing to hear truths about the military situation, he would not appreciate having a stranger talk about the limits of his command.

"It would take many days before the scouts could report back," Bedir said.

"Indeed," Aragorn agreed, "but I can offer you something sooner than that. Not proof, perhaps, but corroboration, something that you might believe more readily."

"Show us, then," said Bedir. "Show us this proof."

* * *

They had ridden through the night. It was only when dawn came that Kabil saw that the tall horsemen who had guided them through the darkness was no man at all. "An elf," whispered the prisoner beside him. He grimaced at his bound hands, lashed, as were Kabil's, to his saddle. His right hand was further bound, tightly wrapped with cloth. "One of the ones who captured me."

An elf? What hope did they have, then? There was nothing to fear, the other prisoner had said, when he had wakened Kabil from his dreaming. It had all been explained to him, and they were going home. But who was he? Kabil had thought it a rescue attempt in those first wild moments. Then, when he had seen the party of enemy horsemen, he had feared treachery from this man who spoke his language and told him there was nothing to fear. But the other man's hands were bound, just as his were.

Morning came, and the day was grey and cheerless, and not just because he was riding as a prisoner to an uncertain end. The horsemen who escorted them were silent for the most part, wrapped in cloaks against the gusts of light rain. When they spoke, Kabil could not understand them. As their prisoner, he had learnt just four words of their language: 'yes' and 'you', eat' and 'drink.' "What do they say?" he asked the other prisoner, but as soon as he spoke, all the horsemen turned to look at him.

Could any of them speak his tongue? He had seen no sign of it, but the enemy was wily, and perhaps there was someone here who was waiting for Kabil to give something away in his own tongue. Even if there was not, they clearly did not like their prisoners talking together in a tongue that they did not understand. "They fear we are plotting," said the other prisoner, but then their escort took charge of their horses and led them apart, so that was the end of their talking.

It was only after they had stopped for the noontide meal that Kabil found himself close to the other prisoner once more. "I don't know," the prisoner said, and it wasn't plotting at all, just an answer to his earlier question. "I can understand the men of Gondor when they speak, but not these other men, these fair-haired men who ride as if they're half horse themselves."

"Who are they?" Kabil asked.

"From Rohan, I think," the prisoner said, and the men from Rohan heard him, turning towards them and watching them closely.

Rohan. He had heard of it. Some even said that they were kin from afar: old enemies who had once lived side by side in the north, and stolen each other's horses until both had moved to wider horse-runs elsewhere. Scarred and broken warriors told of the unstoppable charge of the men of Rohan on the field of slaughter outside the stone city of Gondor. But they were gone now, back to their own land. The king of Gondor claimed lordship over the whole west, and how they must hate him for that claim!

But the elves had departed, too, hating this upstart king who claimed the lands that had once been theirs. They were too few to fight him, and so they had left.

An elf was here, and so were the proud riders of Rohan.

And then they were on the move again, and they had wasted their snatched time together in talking about language, and not in plotting at all.

* * *

 _I am lost,_ Mablung thought. _I am lost, and so far from home._

He had understood barely one word in three. But even if the conversation had taken place in his own language, he knew that he would not have understood it all. At times, the king and Samir had been like duellists, fencing with words. They read things in each other's faces, and conveyed messages with the silences between their words. The king appeared to know exactly what to say and how to say it. He knew when it was safe to provoke, and he knew when he needed to placate.

 _I could not have done it,_ Mablung knew.

To treat with an enemy like this! To sit there so calmly, knowing that a single unwise word could bring ruin to them all!

Captain Faramir had always been good with people. He had known how to coax the truth out of them with gentle words, and he had known when to use a stern command. As for Mablung… Mablung was a follower. He could fight and he could follow orders. He could hide and he could survive in the wilds. But this… This was not the life for him.

 _I could not have done it,_ he thought again.

 _Would I want to?_

"Captain?" he whispered, because he couldn't bear the silence any longer.

They were still in the wain, and their hands were bound. The king had accepted the touch of the rope without any visible reaction. Mablung had reacted more strongly, unable to slow the hectic beating of his heart. Outside they were heavily guarded, he knew. Were people listening on the other side of the canvas? Probably. Could they understand? He had to assume that they could.

"Will he believe you, do you think?" he whispered.

"It is the truth," the king said quietly, perhaps meaning it for the listeners outside.

"I know," Mablung said, "but the truth is not always believed. People don't always want to hear the truth."

"No," said the king. He looked weary, Mablung realised suddenly. Perhaps he had spent days planning what he was going to say to Samir, and rehearsing the words as he sat alone on watch. For him, the true battle was not about merely getting here, but about what he was going to say when he reached his goal. The first part of that battle was over, and although he was a prisoner, at least he had a respite from his battle of words. At least, in a way, he was alone.

Mablung wanted to say more, he needed to say more, but he held his tongue.

If his king called him, he would be there.

* * *

"Do you believe him?" Samir asked at last, when they could not be overheard.

Bedir could have answered immediately, but took his time, pretending to give the matter some thought. "I am inclined to believe him, yes."

"Why?" Samir's voice was harsh. "Because he reminds you of your lost youth? Because you feel some fellow feeling with him, because of the few hours you spent together in a cave? He was your enemy even then. He didn't tell you his name, and he wasn't honest with you. Even then, he came from Gondor."

It was true. All was true, the first part as well as the last. "I knew that he wasn't a member of our clan," Bedir said. "Back then, that fact alone was enough to make him my enemy. I knew that. He never hid that."

Although in truth, he could remember very little of the things the man had said. Men were fools if they said that words spoken sixty years before we branded forever in their memory. His people thrived on stories, and an oft-told story kept an old memory alive, but stories evolved. They changed to suit the circumstances and the mood of their teller. Bedir had never told the story in quite the way it had happened. Now only the story remained, and the truth behind it was but a shadow of a memory.

"And he gave me some good advice," Bedir said, and that much, at least, was true beyond doubt, both in the story and the memory. "It is because of that advice that we are here today."

"And you feel that you owe him for that?" said Samir. "A debt of gratitude? An apology?"

There was a seed of truth in that, although Bedir would never admit it. Instead, he turned the talk into safer channels. "His words have the ring of truth. We knew all along that something felt wrong about the attempt on your life. The man was so very quick to implicate Gondor."

"He feared torture."

"A man bold enough and resourceful enough to be sent on such a mission?" Bedir shook his head. "And the confession didn't save him from torture, anyway, but only earned him more, but then he was silent. No screams, no pleas. He had made his confession, and he died bravely, in silence."

"Yes." Samir was nodding slowly, Bedir thought. He knew all his expressions, all his mannerisms. He had known him since his childhood, the quickest and the brightest of the boys born in the early days of their exile. Samir was not his son, but when the time had come to lay down his lordship, he was glad that Samir had been the one to win it from him.

"And there were the other incidents, too," Bedir said. "Rumours flying through the army, just as he claims was the case in Gondor."

"Yes," Samir said. "Yes."

They were silent for a while. Bedir felt the wind on his cheek and the rain on his hair, and turned his face towards the grey shroud that was all that he ever saw of the sky.

"You don't want to believe him," Bedir said. "I know that. It means overturning everything you have ever believed about Gondor. Worse than that, it means standing before your quarrelsome lords and telling them that you've changed your mind: that you no longer promise them a war of conquest against Gondor, but are taking them home."

Samir was pacing, beads rattling in his hair. "They might not accept it." It was something that he would only ever have admitted to Bedir, and even then, he did so with difficulty. "It has been hard enough for me to hold them together this far. They will not accept it."

"They will, I think," Bedir said, "if you command it." This would be the true test of Samir's leadership, he thought. If Samir could hold his army together through this, then they were his for the rest of his life.

"And if it's true…" Samir said. "If it becomes clear that I have led them hundreds of miles away from our home, while our old enemies have crept up behind us and fallen upon our defenceless homes…?"

Bedir smiled. "And you came to know of it through a whisper on the wind, and took your host home again, and arrived just in time to save the halls and homes of every lord…?" He touched Samir's hand. "Don't dismiss his words just because you don't want them to be true and because the price of believing him is high. You are greater than that, and wiser than I was as a boy. I almost dismissed his suggestion out of hand. I thought he was criticising the ways of my people. What did he know of it: a wounded stranger in a cave? But I took a risk. I looked past my affronted pride and saw the truth of his words."

"And now we are here," Samir said, smiling wryly.

"Yes." Bedir nodded. "And now we are here."

"And he wants us to ride out with him, you and me and a small party of us to see this proof of his." Samir gave a bark of laughter. "Oh, he offers us guarantees. He has told us our destination, but he will let us choose our own route there. He will let us watch the road for ambushes and traps." Another laugh. "He is a clever man, and he slipped past three lines of sentries, and would have slipped past the fourth, had he not deliberately revealed himself. If he plans a trap for us, I am far from confident that we will escape it."

"It would be a risk," Bedir said. "A great risk."

"Yes," said Samir. "I will not do it. I will tell him- No, I will kill him."

"I didn't mean riding out to see this proof of his," Bedir said. "I was talking about refusing to do so. About dismissing his words because you don't want to hear them. What if he's right? What if he's right, and you ignored him? That is the true risk. _That_."

* * *

At the end of it, it all came down to having faith in others. Aragorn had to believe that Legolas had conveyed his messages correctly, and that they had been passed on. He had to believe that Éomer had led the army well in his absence and acted in the way that Aragorn needed him to act. He had to trust that Samir would react the way he expected. He had trusted in his cloak and in Gimli's mithril shirt. He had trusted Mablung to move with the utmost stealth, and to give nothing away, although Aragorn had forced him into a situation that he found almost unendurable.

And he had to believe that his judgements were correct. He had to believe that all the pieces would come together as he had planned, and that all the players would perform as he needed them to. If they did not, the fault was not theirs, but his, for misjudging things.

The plan was his. If it failed, the fault was his.

And it could still fail. Samir had agreed to come with him – Bedir had played his part in that, he thought – and that was one battle won. Once the decision had been made, Samir had moved swiftly. The armies were two days apart by the speed of marching men, but far less than that on horseback. Aragorn had suggested an escort of twenty warriors, and so Samir had brought thirty, as Aragorn had known he would. Éomer would have sent twenty-four. More than that, and Samir might feel threatened and launch a pre-emptive attack. Too few, and he might attack anyway, scenting a certain victory.

 _Supposition,_ he thought. It was all supposition. Everything was. Supposition and insight, but insight could be flawed. He was the Heir of Isildur, but he was not immune to errors of judgement. Nobody was.

 _No,_ he thought, as one of Samir's scouts signalled from a hill top to say that the enemy party had been sighted. _This is not yet over._ There were still so many ways in which it could all go wrong.

* * *

Late in the afternoon, the horsemen halted. An early meal, Kabil thought, or an even earlier end to the day's journey, but the horsemen didn't dismount. "What is it?" Kabil asked. "What are they saying?"

The other prisoner shook his head, saying that he didn't know. Kabil wondered if he should jab his heels into his horse's side and make a run for it, but he didn't want to die. _I'm sorry, Hasad, I don't want to die!_ He was nothing without a lord to give him orders. All he could do was wait.

"Samir," the other prisoner breathed. "My lord."

Kabil's head snapped up. He saw dust clouding in the east. He saw banners, limp in the rain. A group of horsemen: twenty, perhaps, or thirty? "How?" he asked. "How do you know?"

"Because it has to be," said the prisoner. "Samir himself, or someone close to him. It would make no sense otherwise."

 _It makes no sense to me anyway,_ Kabil wanted to say, but who was he? Just a man without a lord; a man whose lord was dead.

The party came closer, and he knew the sigil on the banners. Even in the gloom, he knew it. "An ambush…" he breathed, but even as he thought it, he didn't think it was. The enemy horsemen held their spears upright, more like an honour guard than an ambush. He had seen those spears at work, and knew how deadly they could be, but for now, at least, they were not being readied for war.

Samir rode right up to them. Kabil only had eyes for him. Words were spoken. Men took up their allotted stations. "Lord Samir!" Kabil cried, but Samir silenced him with a sharp look and a fierce nod. There were two strangely-clad riders in his group, Kabil noticed. Their grey cloaks made them difficult to see clearly, and the taller one was hooded against the rain, his face cast in shadow.

Kabil waited, desperate to explain himself, desperate to beg Samir's forgiveness. Was this an exchange of prisoners? There were two of them here, and two strangers in Samir's party. But the grey-clad strangers were not bound. When the tall one rode forward, nobody tried to stop him. Some of them wanted to, Kabil thought, but Samir stopped them, holding up a peremptory hand.

 _Oh, I don't want to be here!_ Kabil thought, and he pulled at his bonds, chafing the skin until it hurt. The shame of it! To be seen by all these people as a captive! He wanted Samir to speak to him, to tell him that he was forgiven. But as long as Samir ignored him, he could pretend that forgiveness would come. If Samir spoke to him only to scorn him…!

Then the moment came at last. "Kabil," Samir said quietly, so quietly that surely nobody else could hear. "I need you to tell me the truth. Don't tell me what you think I want to hear. Don't try to make yourself look better than you were. I will know. Don't accuse our enemies of things they didn't do." He smiled. It was a strange smile, almost rueful. "I will know."

And so Kabil told him everything: about Hasad and the attacks on the enemy outposts; about Hasad's wound; about the conflict that had followed it. For the most part, Samir listened without question, except to say, "The women and children as well? He specifically told you to kill them?"

"He said it would show Gondor how strong we are, and force them to send an answer," Kabil said. "And we would be ready to meet that answer, and kill them all."

"And you have seen the size of the answer that they send," Samir said. "Hasad was always rash, but I had not pegged him as a fool, or cruel."

"You commanded…" Kabil began, but how could he know? All he had known about Samir's commands was what Hasad had told him. That was all any of them had known. As a boy, Hasad had always been one to take a command and exceed it, in an attempt to win himself more glory. It was what had earned him the beads of a lord.

"And so Hasad died," Samir said. "Killed by Gondor."

"No." Kabil had to shake his head. The truth. He had been asked to tell the truth. It was hard; harder ever than deceiving himself had been. "It was a minor wound, but he didn't tend it well. He would have died anyway, even without them."

He said more, telling Samir about the ambush they had set for the horsemen of Rohan and Gondor. They had been so sure of victory. Right up until the end, they had expected nothing else. "Hasad said they had few horses, and rode them badly, but they were good," he said. "Too good. And it's impossible to hide from them. They knew exactly where we were."

"We cannot beat them?"

The truth. Tell the truth. Kabil couldn't bring himself to look at Samir's face, only down at his bound hands, the hands of a shamed traitor. "I don't think we can, lord, or if we do, only at great cost. They could have killed us all."

"But they did not?" Samir asked.

"No." The truth. The truth, even though it should taste like ashes. "They tried hard not to kill us, I think. Most of us they took in prisoners, and they treated us well. We were bound, but we were fed. And they let us bury our dead." He looked at Samir, and found that he could barely see him for the tears that were welling in his eyes. "They let us say the proper words. Our people died far from home, but their spirits are at rest." He closed his eyes. "He is at rest."

Samir said nothing. By the time Kabil had composed himself, Samir had moved on to the other prisoner. He was a messenger and a spy, it seemed, who carried orders to Samir's agent in the great stone city, and took back his reports. Now that he said it, Kabil remembered him at last. They had seen him pass south but they had never seen him return.

"There was no report last time," the man was saying. "I went to the usual place, but it was empty. So I risked a visit to the city, and they were saying… My lord Samir, they were saying that he had tried to kill the king of Gondor. I thought they were lying at first. I knew what your last orders to him were, and it wasn't _that._ But too many people had seen it with their own eyes. They said that your sigil was found on his body, but he hid that. I know that he did that. I was there when he did it, when we travelled down together right at the start."

"Yes," said Samir, "yes," as he turned his back on them, apparently lost in thought.

There would be no forgiveness for Kabil, not today. He had told the lord of lords that he could not defeat the forces of the king of Gondor. He had told the truth, and now he was forever damned.


	18. Hostages

This is the first of today's two chapters.

* * *

 **Chapter eighteen: Hostages**

From _Journey to the East,_ by Rosson of Anórien, F. A. 375

That was far from the end of it, of course. It is doubtful that Samir entirely trusted Elessar, but he was wise enough to know that he could not risk disbelieving him. We must give him credit for that. Elessar strongly suspected that Umbar was mustering in the south, but Samir had to take it all on trust. As it turned out, a messenger arrived just two days later, confirming that their enemies in the east were preparing to attack, but Samir had already made his decision by then, and already put it to his lords. It was a brave decision, perhaps the bravest he ever made.

But there were still many negotiations to be had. Neither side wanted to take their armies home without guarantees that the other army was departing, too. There were offers and counter offers. Elessar was well aware that Samir's need was greater, for he, at least, had been forewarned and had left part of his strength at home. Samir had left his homelands almost undefended. He had been goaded into war prematurely, and the fighting strength of the clans had not yet recovered from the War of the Ring.

Elessar could not say that, of course, and so he made reasonable-seeming offers, until at length there came an offer than Samir agreed to accept. Their armies would withdraw in good order, each one closely monitored by observers from the other side. Elessar would leave part of his force in northern Ithilien, in case any of Samir's lords should be feel compelled to try a foray. Neither would enter the Brown Lands for now, but further negotiation over the fate of those lands would take place once they had set their own houses in order.

It must have been a strange sight. They sat not in a palace or a hall, but on the damp ground. There was no canopy above them, just the leaden sky. Their words were witnessed, but not in writing. Instead, the record survived through the oral stories of the Rohirrim and the songs of the clans.

Yet in the few hours in which they talked together, these two men shaped the future of the entire region. No, of more than that, because so much more was changed because they were bold enough to draw back from war.

* * *

This was far from the end of it, of course. Night was falling, and the blurred greyness that was Bedir's daytime vision turned to blackness and the bleeding patches of light that were the torches.

For Samir, the hardest battle still lay ahead. He had dared to trust his enemy, but he still had to convince his headstrong lords. He would have to master them as he had never mastered them before.

He would have to do so alone.

"But I cannot agree to this," Samir was saying. "You make such pretty offers, but…"

"Samir." Bedir touched his arm. He seldom interrupted him in public, although he sometimes did so when alone. "My lord."

He drew Samir away, but after a few steps, Samir took over, knowing that Bedir was unable to strike a steady course in this darkness. Bedir trusted his lord to lead somewhere where they would not be overheard.

"How can he have the authority to make such promises?" Samir said. "I agree in principle, but I cannot agree in fact. When their king hears what has been promised in his name, it will be so easy for him to refute everything. He…" His voice trailed away. This, too, was something he only did in private.

"I thought you knew," Bedir said.

"What?" Samir asked, but he was already realising the truth. He was no fool, although in some things, he could still be blind. "He is the king of Gondor. And I had him. I had him, and I let him slip through my fingers."

Because it was too late to seize him now, of course. Perhaps they could take him down, but none of them would survive it, and the war between their two people would be never-ending, and would bring nothing but ruin to all who fought in it.

"Did you know all along?" Samir asked.

Bedir shook his head. "I suspected when we were in the wain, but I could not quite believe it. It was afterwards, after we got here, that I became sure of it. You hear things more clearly when you cannot see, and there was something in the way he spoke. It was there even stronger when his own men spoke to him, although they were being so careful not to do so any more than they had to, for fear that they might slip."

"And yet you didn't tell me." Samir said it quietly, but there was anger there, oh yes.

"I thought-"

"You thought I knew," Samir said scathingly. "And I like a fool…" He stopped then, and laughed suddenly. Even after all these years, Bedir could still be surprised by him. "The audacity of the man! To come alone into my camp, when he rules over more lands than we can ever dream of…!" He let out a breath, his laughter fading. " _I_ wouldn't do it. I wouldn't dare."

It was a confession he would only make to one man. To one man alone, and now that man was leaving him.

"There is one thing more," Bedir said.

Samir was silent, waiting for him. Now that the time had come, Bedir found that he wanted the silence to stretch on for ever. He wanted things to carry on unchanged. Life had been good these last few years, with the clans finally uniting under Samir. He was blind, and he could no longer hold a sword, but after many years of exile, finally he had real power, as mentor and counsellor to the lord of lords.

No, he had to do this. He felt that it was right. "He hasn't asked for hostages," Bedir said, "or not yet. But I intend to offer myself as one, even so."

"You will not!" Samir cried. "I forbid you!"

"I have obeyed you in everything," Bedir said. "Once I was your lord, and now you are mine, and I have bowed before you and accepted the touch of your knife. I have counselled you, but I have always obeyed you."

"But not this time," Samir said bitterly.

"Please don't make me a traitor, lord," Bedir begged. "Because I will do this, whether you grant permission or not, but I would rather do so with your blessing. I will be in no danger. This I know. He will treat me as an honoured guest…"

"Because he owes you a debt?"

"Even without that, he would treat me well." Bedir smiled. "Have no fear for me. But we both know that this truce is but a shallow thing. Too many issues still lie between us. We might have agreed to turn away from war, but we are not friends. After we defeat our own separate enemies, what will happen next? The Brown Lands separate us, but for how long? In a few years time, will we be back here with our armies, glaring at each other across the wilderness that separates us?"

"Perhaps," Samir said. "He wants us gone for now, so he can turn to his enemies in the south. I can accept that. But he has not yet convinced me that he doesn't intend to rule over half the world before the end."

"We need peace," Bedir said. "I was wrong. I wanted us to unite so we could fight off the armies of Gondor when they came for us, as I thought they surely would. But I was wrong. We need to unite so we can build a peace with them. Friendship? Perhaps not, but peace."

"And you will build this?" Samir said. "And how about Samir, the lord of lords? Does he not play a part in this?"

"Think of me not as a hostage," Bedir said, "but as an ambassador. I want to understand them and their ways. Even without eyes, I can see their cities and come to know what sort of a people they are. Yes, you had spies who did just that, but how much more can be gained by someone who can ask questions openly? A spy can find information, but he cannot build trust."

Samir was silent, pacing in the dark. "You want to see where he came from. All your life, you've remembered that wounded stranger of yours. You want to see the land that made him what he is. Did he know, do you think? Did he know that the boy who helped him so long ago now sat at my right hand: the one man who I will always listen to? Did the whole audacious plan derive from that?"

Perhaps it had, Bedir thought. There was a kernel of truth in the first part of it, too. His wounded stranger had now been revealed as a daring traveller who had seen so many lands. What had Bedir seen but the hills and grasslands around his home? It was too late to see with his eyes, but that made no real difference. He could still see. He could still learn.

"I have always listened to you. I have valued your counsel." Even alone, Samir was too proud to beg, but Bedir heard the need that lay beneath his words. Not _I will be lost without your advice,_ perhaps, but _I will find things harder without you._

"You have valued it too much, perhaps," Bedir said sadly. "I am an old man. I was not the chosen lord of my clan, but in the years of our exile, I became their lord in everything but name. In the eyes of all your army, I was once a lord, and I am a lord no longer, but I still live. I did not fall in battle or go beneath my barrow. They see you talking to me and they-"

"Scorn me?" Samir said. "They would not dare."

Perhaps not, but Samir had struggled hard to keep control of his lords during the slow march west. He would struggle even harder to get them to follow him back home. There was no use trying to cajole them because that would lose their respect. He would have to be the tyrant, fierce and strong. He would have to dominate them into obedience, and they would be quicker to accept his rule if he commanded them as a strong warrior who bowed to no man, than as a man who turned always to the old man at his shoulder.

He said little of that. Samir would understand it soon, he thought, and was beginning to understand it even now. "It is time for you to leave me behind," he merely said.

"But we will meet again," Samir swore. "Become too fond of your new-found friends, and I will come to drag you back to me in chains."

"I will not," Bedir promised, knowing that there was some truth behind the threat, but a truth far less harsh than the words.

And it turned out that his old, blind eyes were still capable of weeping. Could Samir still weep? By his voice, Bedir thought that he could.

* * *

There was yet more to be said before they parted.

"Wars have started because of the smallest of things," Aragorn said, "and implacable hatreds have grown up because of one small omission."

"They have indeed." Anger blazed briefly in Samir's eyes. Bedir had told him who Aragorn was, of course, and Samir wanted to hate Aragorn for the deception, but could not risk endangering their new understanding. He was pretending he had known all along. He could not confront Aragorn, not without admitting that he had been fooled.

It had been a dangerous moment, nevertheless. Of all the dangers that Aragorn had been feared during the ride from Samir's camp, this had been among the worst of them. He would have confessed his true identity before they parted, of course, because Samir was bound to find out in the end, but he had wanted there to be a degree of understanding between them before the revelation came. He had been afraid that Samir's messenger would give him away prematurely, but he had been focused entirely on giving his report to his lord, and had spared not a glance for the hooded man who rode beside his lord.

"When travelling to your camp," Aragorn said, "we encountered one of your scouts. He was good, a credit to you. He-"

"You killed him, then."

Aragorn nodded. A dead liegeman would be little mourned by a lord of the clans, Aragorn knew, but things were different when there was talk of war. A life that was accounted worthless in time of peace might suddenly assume great value when it was taken away by an enemy. "We had no choice," he said. "We buried him as well as we could. I will tell you where to find him, so you can bring him home, and say the right words over his grave."

Bedir began to move forward then, but Aragorn shook his head slightly, even though Bedir could not see him. "The right words are important," he continued. He remembered the woman in Samir's wain, and how fierce and furious she had been when she had talked of their dead. "You lost so many before the walls of Minas Tirith."

"You burnt them, we hear." Samir said it as if it was of no importance. It was anything but. Perhaps it was one of those things that Samir was prepared to put off until their next meeting, but Aragorn would not let it wait. He had understood many things when he had heard that woman speak.

"We were in haste," Aragorn said, "for the full force of Sauron's might had fallen upon us, and we feared yet more attack. I did not yet rule Gondor then-"

"You blame others?"

"I blame haste," Aragorn said, "and necessity. I blame the fact that within days, we marched to the Black Gate itself, thinking only to find death and the ruin of all things. Many evils were done that day, but I cannot bring your dead back, and neither can I bring back ours. But I can let you lay them to rest. Their spirits wander lost, do they not?" He closed his eyes for a moment, shaking his head. "I am sorry. I did not know."

Had never stopped to think. He knew something of their burial rites, and had made sure that Éomer knew them, too. He had known that they were important, but he had never considered the dead who had fallen on the Pelennor. All along, he had thought that he was so wise in the ways of the clansmen because of his time amongst them, but he had forgotten _this_.

"None of my kin lie dead before Minas Tirith," Samir said, "but my wife…" His voice caught, and he cleared his throat. "Many have suffered losses. It makes them foolish. Some are even afraid that you will command their dead to ride into war against us." He laughed, his face hidden in the darkness.

"I would not," Aragorn assured him. "I could not. The tales are true, as far as they go, but they were the spirits of a people cursed by my ancestor. I do not have the power to issue such a curse, and I would not do so even if I could. It was because he cursed them that I could command them. They are at rest now, and never again will I command the dead, or wish to. If your spirits are restless, I would have you heal them."

Samir said nothing. His face was turned away.

"I will do it," Bedir said, stepping forward. "You have not asked for hostages, lord, but I offer myself as one, nevertheless. I would travel with you to your city of Minas Tirith, and…" He turned to Samir; took his arm in the dark. "I will lay our dead to rest. _Our_ dead, because although our clan sent no warriors to fight for Sauron, we are all one people now, and always will be."

Still nothing from Samir. Aragorn, too, remained silent. It was necessary, he thought.

"It will be another reason, will it not?" Bedir smiled, and he looked almost young again, with his scar and his wrinkles seeming like nothing more than a trick of the flickering light.

"Yes," said Samir. "Yes."

* * *

The old man had offered himself as a hostage, and so hostages had to be offered in return. Had the king planned even for this? Mablung thought he probably had. He seemed to have planned for everything. Either that, or he was exceptionally good at thinking on his feet, while conveying the impression that nothing surprised him.

"I will go," said one of the Rohirrim. "I am Cenred, and my king has granted me leave. I will go for the Mark." He laughed. "They are fond of their horses, or so I hear, and shoot arrows from the saddle, as we do. I would like to find out more about such a people."

"I will go," said one of the elves. "Lasdir is my name. I will go for the elves of Ithilien. We know little of the east. Perhaps it is time to learn."

"Lord," said Mablung, before anyone else could speak. "My lord."

"No," said the king. "No, Mablung, don't…"

Mablung stepped close to him, and lowered his voice. When he spoke, he did so in the court tongue of Gondor, the tongue of the elves. "Let me go, my lord, for Gondor."

"You have played your part, Mablung, and played it well." The king touched his arm. "There is no need for you to do more."

"What did I do?" Mablung shook his head, letting out a bitter breath. "You could have guided yourself there without me. I killed that man, but you didn't need me for that. This morning, I sat there at your feet and listened. I did nothing."

"You did everything that was asked of you, and more," the king said warmly.

"I understand," Mablung said. "I've had time to think. You thought you might need a witness who could carry back the news of your death. It is always like that in the stories. The bard survives, or the esquire: someone who can tell the tale. If Samir had decided to take you prisoner, he would have needed someone to send back with the demands."

"Yes," the king admitted. "That was one of the reasons. Yes."

"But I wasn't needed," Mablung said. "I didn't have to perform that role."

"For which I am thankful," said the king with a smile. "A man walks through a shadowed valley with a sword at his side and armour on his back, and no bandits attack him. Does it mean that his sword was useless, just because he did not need to use it? If you had been called upon to bear the news, or called upon to die, you would have done so. You were not. That changes nothing about the intention."

"But…" Mablung protested.

"No." The king shook his head. "You are a man of many skills, the best that there can be. I know Rangers of the North, my own kin, who could not best you when it comes to moving unseen. I know that you can fight. I gave you an unenviable task, and you fulfilled it beyond reproach. But you were uncomfortable today. This I know. You turned your back on cities on stone and the games of politics and manners that are played within their walls."

"The men of Rohan know little of such games," Mablung said, "but this Cenred has offered himself. I know more of their tongue than he does. And maybe… Maybe these clansmen, too, would appreciate a blunt and honest man, who isn't overfond of setting traps for them in words."

"Unlike me?" said the king, but he smiled as he said so, a rueful smile.

"I hated him because of what happened at the outposts," Mablung confessed. "When you said you were going to talk to him, sometimes I… sometimes I wondered if you should. But I heard what you said to him, and what he said. Some of it, at least. Perhaps he wasn't even guilty of that. Perhaps it doesn't matter."

"They will not be forgotten," the king said quietly. "I promise you that. If Samir and I meet again, I will not let them be forgotten."

"I'm glad, lord." Mablung gave a quick smile. "But he decided to believe you in the end. Even I could see how difficult that was for him, and I know it won't be easy for him to convince the others. He's taking a big risk. And I…" He sighed; breathed in, and sighed again. He pressed his hands to his face, covering his eyes for a moment, as if that could change things. When he opened his eyes again, the king was looking at him, and the darkness could not hide the sympathy in his eyes. "I won't forget them," he said, "but perhaps the best way for me to remember them is not to avenge them, but to do whatever I can to make sure that they are the only ones. That there is never any war between us. That the only deaths that lie between us are a handful on each side, and no more."

"Yes," said the king. "Mablung. I…" He smiled, but his eyes were gleaming, as if there were almost tears there, but why would that be? "I chose well when I chose you, and I am sorry."

"You refuse me?" He didn't know what he felt about that. Disappointment, yes, but perhaps, at the same time, a spark of relief?

"I accept," said the king.

* * *

He was home. He was back with his own people. He was free.

Kabil was alone in a tent, surrounded by the soft sounds of a sleeping army. He could hear snoring from other tents. When he went to the flap and looked out, he could see that a light was still burning in Samir's wain, although the night was so late that it was almost morning. Somewhere not far away, people were talking. Samir had yet to tell the army that he intended to turn them round. They wondered why they had gone for a day and a night without moving anywhere. They wondered where Samir had ridden to for so long, only coming back long after dark.

Kabil was free, and he was alone. The other prisoners were being sent for, he knew, and would be back before the end of tomorrow. They, too, bore his shame. They, too, had allowed themselves to be captured.

But they had not told bald truths to the man who was their lord of lords. They had not suggested that this vaunted army of theirs was just a shadow when compared to the might of Gondor. They had not admitted that their own lord - Hasad, his brother - was a rash fool.

And so he was alone. What would he do when morning came?

He would obey Samir. What else could he do?

* * *

It was another night with little sleep. It was after dawn when the party finally rode in. Aragorn was with them, or so Legolas had told him hours before, but it was not until Éomer saw him with his own eyes that he could truly relax.

"It went well?" he asked.

"It went well." Aragorn slid down from the saddle, but almost stumbled as he landed. How many sleepless nights had he endured, fighting his desperate battle of wits? All Éomer had needed to do was wait.

Oh, but he had wanted to ride with them! He had come within a hair's breadth of doing so. But he could not. Just as he could not do so when they had battled the enemy horsemen, he could not do so for this. He had to stay with the army. He had to ensure that one king, at least, survived in the west. He had to…

Old reasons. Tired arguments. And so he had tossed and turned, paced up and down, and raged, raged silently, even as he gave his calm commands.

Waiting was the hardest part. Éowyn had tried to tell him that more than once, but he had scoffed at her. How could staying at home in comfort be harder than risking your life in the filth of the field?

"He believed?" Éomer asked.

"He believed."

Cenred was gone, Éomer saw. So it had come to that. Too much to hope that it would not.

"They will treat him well," Aragorn said, noticing how Éomer was taking a tally of their numbers. "A year, I have said, and no more. We will get him back, and the others, too." Raising a hand in apology, he walked away, and exchanged a few quick words with one of his captains. From their gestures, it seemed to concern the stranger in their party, doubtless a hostage from the east. He was an old man, and Éomer thought that he was almost certainly blind.

"What happened?" Éomer asked, when Aragorn returned. The old man was being helped down from his horse, and led away with soft words.

Aragorn began walking towards his tent. "I am more weary than I have been for many years," he said. "Can I tell you in the morning?"

"It is morning." Éomer chuckled, then found that he was unable to stop. He laughed, laughed far more than the situation warranted, and then, at last, fell silent again.

"I will tell you in the afternoon, then," said Aragorn.

But there was one more thing to do before Éomer could let him rest. Legolas was already there, waiting at the entrance, and Gimli was hurrying up behind him. "…knew you'd return," Éomer heard him say, as he turned away from them. "I wouldn't let anyone say otherwise."

Éomer went as fast as he could, but even during the short walk from Aragorn's tent to his own, half a dozen captains intercepted him. They had questions for him, or they sought his rulings on decisions that they wished to make. He answered the simple questions, and the longer ones he dismissed for now, with a "later. Come to me again in an hour."

By the time he returned to Aragorn's tent, Aragorn was sitting on his bed. Someone had brought him a plate of breakfast, and a steaming mug of something hot sat on the table beside his bed. Gimli was sitting in the chair beside the bed, holding a grey cloak in his hands. "He could have kept it," Gimli was saying. "It's only for a year, after all. He could have kept it. He…"

He trailed away as he saw Éomer standing in the entrance, the light behind him.

"I kept it safe," Éomer said, and he went down on one knee as he returned the sword of Elendil to its rightful master. He had not planned to do so, but it seemed only fitting.

"I knew you would," Aragorn said gravely, but he would not take it until Éomer was on his feet again, handing it over without ceremony, as a friend.

"What happened?" Gimli asked. "Legolas got back before you. He's told me some of it, but…"

"You'll get no stories from him this morning, Master Dwarf," Éomer said with a laugh.

"Indeed you won't." Aragorn yawned. As he did so, it occurred to Éomer that his friend had been wearing masks for weeks: not just in his dealings with Samir, but in all the days that had preceded that. He had suspected from the start that the Easterlings weren't behind the attack, but he hadn't wanted even a hint of that to slip out, in case it alerted their true enemies who were pulling strings behind the scenes. It was only here, only now, that he could finally let himself shed those masks.

But not for long. He would sleep for a few hours, but then once again he would assume the mantle of a king.

"There is much to do," Aragorn said, "and promises to be kept. The captains who rode with me know what they are. Talk to them. You will know what to do." He lay down, and yawned again, closing his eyes.

"I will do that," Éomer said quietly, as he turned and left him there. Not long later, when he turned, he saw that Legolas and Gimli had also left. Gimli was still gripping the cloak, and although the morning was chilly, he did not put it on.

He would give Aragorn as long as he needed, Éomer vowed. This time, he could happily endure the waiting.


	19. The Token

This is the second of today's two chapters. Back to one chapter a day tomorrow.

* * *

 **Chapter nineteen: The Token**

The following speech appears in _The Twilight of Umbar,_ a collection of documents compiled in Pelargir in F.A. 45. It is attributed to one Sakalkhôr of the Quays, c. F.A 12, but the original source is now lost

The proud cities of Gondor and Arnor have crumbled into dust. Only Minas Anor remains. The last city of Númenor, they call it. But our city is older still. Our city was built by the Lords of Númenor before the Fall. Ours was built when Númenor still had kings. Theirs was built by a traitor to the last, great king: Elendil the Faithless, a rebel captain who came with stolen heirlooms and a rag-tag band of refugees, and dared to set himself up as a king.

Black Númenoreans, they called the founders of our city, because they dared stay faithful to the memory of the last king. Fallen, they called them, and they strove ceaselessly to drive them out of their own city and steal it from them. At length, they succeeded, but they had no right to it, and could not keep it long. Again they stole it, and again they lost it. It is ours now, and ours it will ever remain!

Who are we? We are the descendants of Númenor before the Fall. Few of that bloodline remain. Some dwindled and mixed their blood with lesser men. Some fell in battle. Some disappeared into the south. The men of Gondor think we have gone forever, but we will never die. The lords of Arnor hid themselves in the wilderness and endured the scorn of the people they had once ruled. Fools! We have hidden ourselves from the eyes of Gondor, but we have never accepted scorn. There are few of us, and at times we have been driven far from our cities, but we have always been lords.

Who are we? We are the descendants of the sons of Castamir, betrayed king of Gondor. Less high is our lineage than that of the lords of Númenor, for we have the blood of Elendil the Faithless in our veins, but we are still of the blood of the West. What was the crime of our forefather, Castamir? Merely that he tried to keep his bloodline true, while his kinsman on the throne of Gondor was content to mix his blood with that of lesser men. We brought with us the fleet of Gondor, and our skill with ships is beyond compare.

Who are we? We are the descendants of the men who lived on these shores before the lords came from across the sea. We are the descendants of those who sailed with the sons of Castamir. We are the descendants of those who came from Harad to join the cause of these new lords. We are descendants of people of Gondor who were taken as slaves, but pleased their masters and, in time, were freed. We are a mixed people, and because we do not rule, it matters not. Our blood combines the strengths of many people, and all those people have cause to hate.

Who are we? We are many and various, but we all come from Umbar

Who are we? We are many and various, but we all united by hate.

Who do we hate? We hate Gondor, and most of all, we hate her king. Many years ago, when our grandfathers were young men, we prepared a mighty fleet, but all came to naught. The fleet was not destroyed at sea, in a mighty battle worthy of song, but was burnt at the quayside by a captain of Gondor who came sneaking in at night like a common thief.

But we did not waste the years in fruitless mourning. We built the fleet again, stronger, far stronger than before. When the time was right, we sent it against Gondor. Once more, all came to naught. The same captain came against us. Once more, he killed us unfairly. Once more he cheated. For he came against us with an army of the dead. What can men do against the dead? Thousands left Umbar. Barely a dozen returned. Most had drowned. Some fled, but died in the wilderness on the long road home.

Who is he? Who is this captain who burns our ships like a thief in the night? Who is this captain who comes against us with an army that no living man can withstand? He is the same man. He calls himself the King of the West, and while he lives, the dead of Umbar will never be at rest, for how can they sleep when they are unavenged? How can they sleep while their slayer lives?

Unite, men of Umbar! In ships or on horses, in carts or on foot, follow your lords. Follow us, and make Gondor _burn_!"

* * *

Seregon was kept waiting for two whole nights and the long, slow day in between them. Two nights with the token hidden in his pouch. He was always aware of it. He felt that it was blazing there, the king's seal like white fire glowing through the worn leather of his pouch. Two nights. Nobody came to find him. Nobody came to give him orders or receive his reports.

Were they all dead? He began to fear it. _All dead,_ he thought once, and when he came to himself again, he was standing very still in the window, looking out at the white towers and the green and gentle trees. All dead, and the mission come to naught. Nothing left for him but to make his weary way back to the emptiness that was all that remained of his home.

Or to stay here, he thought. To stay here, in this sham of a life that he had built for himself. To stay here and wait. More lords would come one day, and more orders.

But on the second morning, a man was waiting for him in the old meeting place behind the trees. "I had something for you," Seregon said reproachfully. "Two nights ago now." Two nights spent in fear that the theft would be discovered. Two nights worrying that the token had become worthless, or worse. Two nights worrying that very sight of it would cause the Citadel guards to slay the one who held it. "I didn't know how to find you."

The other man looked at him with disdain. Despite the oaths Seregon had sworn to them, they had never entirely trusted him. He had gone down on his knees and prostrated himself as he had sworn his loyalty, but they had given him just scraps of their trust. They left him in the dark; that much was plain. He didn't know if this man was the only one who remained, or if there were many more of them. He had given up twelve years of his life to infiltrate this city of enemies, yet to the lords who had arrived in the city just weeks before, he was the least important of them all.

He didn't even know their names.

"Tell me why I should allow you to find me?" asked the nameless lord. "So you can fail me, as you failed _him_? You knew how to find him, and now he has been taken."

Seregon shook his head. "That wasn't-"

"Your fault?" said the other man. "You were on duty at the gate when that meddling spy brought the news of his whereabouts. And yet you did nothing. You brought no warning. You did nothing to stop them bringing him down."

"I couldn't!" Seregon protested. "My captain-"

"Your captain?" the other man said coldly. "Is he your captain now?"

"Captain Othoner left me in charge of the gate," Seregon said. "I couldn't leave my station, not without throwing away everything I've worked for these last twelve years. Not without-"

"You knew where he was." The other man grabbed Seregon's upper arm, and held it tight enough to hurt. It was hard to look away from the cold ferocity of his grey eyes. "He was waiting to meet you, was he not? You could have walked away from that gate and brought him warning-"

"I didn't know!" Seregon protested. "I knew that the Bloodhound had brought urgent news, but I didn't know it was about… about _him_." No names. They didn't even trust him with names. "And even if I'd brought the warning, there was no way for him to escape. The Bloodhound had already surrounded the house with his own men."

"Puny men," sneered the other man. "Rats who scuttle around in the shadows. He could have fought his way out."

"But it would have been the end for me!" Seregon protested. "No way back. If I abandoned my station… If I was seen bringing him the warning…"

The other man pushed him away in imperious disgust. _Better you than him,_ he was clearly thinking; everything about him shouted that. Seregon heaved in a great breath, then let it out again. Perhaps he was right. Seregon knew but little of the great plan. He had been away from his homeland for twelve years, and even if he was broken and persuaded to tell all, there was little that he could say.

 _But I've given up twelve years!_ he wanted to shout. _Twelve years. I can't just throw that away!_

"But he is strong," said the other man, with a grim smile. "No matter what they do to him, he will not talk."

 _And you would,_ he clearly meant. _You are weak and worthless, and you would talk._

"He gave me a task." Seregon tried to say it with dignity, but he was afraid that it only sounded surly. "He told me to find you the means to gain entry to the Citadel and kill the Steward." He reached into his pouch and drew out the token. "I might not have been able to stop what happened, but I did see this. By staying at my post, I saw the Bloodhound show this token, and I have obtained it for you. Two nights ago I obtained it for you." He held it out. "It is a token stamped with the king's own seal. Its loss might have been discovered by now, but if not… Surely all doors will open to the person who carries this."

The other man snatched it from his hand without a word.

* * *

It was hard to keep yourself cheerful during the day when you were getting so little sleep at night. But it was necessary, Pippin thought. Everyone else was so tense and worried. Sometimes they went for whole hours without smiling, so Pippin would say something - just a little joke or some self-deprecating comment - and people would smile again, if only for a little while.

It was what he did. He didn't seem to be that good at anything else. He and Merry had saved that nice Captain Daerion, and that was certainly good, but since then, they hadn't done much at all. They'd made several tips to the city, but hadn't unearthed any secrets. They couldn't question prisoners. They had no power to watch over their friends from afar and keep them safe. They had swords, and had held their own against the ruffians in the Shire, but neither of them would stand for long against a man trained for war. It was hard to do so when you were small.

At night, as he struggled to sleep, it was hard to not to remember such things. Sometimes he would give up on trying to sleep, and get up and wander into the sitting room that he shared with Merry. He hoped to find Merry there, but although the door to Merry's bedroom was never completely shut, the room was dark inside. So he would wander to the window instead, and look out. Sometimes he would open the window and lean out as far as he could. When he did so, he saw many windows with lights inside. How many other people spent these nights awake, unable to sleep?

The danger to Aragorn would be greatest just before dawn, Arwen had said. That dawn had come yesterday, and day had followed it, and then another night. He was still alive; she had told them that. Still alive. Still in danger.

Still alive.

Another dawn had come now, and another morning. Pippin rubbed his eyes, yawning. "I'm hungry," he said quietly. "What's for breakfast?" That would have been enough to earn a few fond smiles, but he was alone now, and there was nobody to smile at the insatiable appetite of hobbits. _It's true, though,_ he thought. _I_ am _hungry._ He yawned again, and stretched, wincing at the stiffness of his limbs. It had been fully dark when he had come to sit by the window, and he must have been sitting for hours without moving. Hours? It hadn't felt like hours. Perhaps he _had_ dozed a little, after all. He had faint memories of things that could not have happened, except in dreams.

Arwen herself seemed like a dream at first, almost floating as she walked across the greensward outside, the morning mists parting before her.

Before he realised what he was doing, he was running from the chamber. Along the hallway, down the stairs, across the stone-flagged entrance hall, lined with pillars. The door warden bowed and opened the door to him. There was a cold bite in the air outside, and the ground was wet beneath his feet.

Arwen was in the garden, as he had known she would be. His steps faltered as he neared her. She was all alone, and she was facing away from him. All around her were flowers, both white ones and gold. The golden ones were elanor; that much he knew. He remembered the white ones from Lórien, but didn't know their name.

 _She wants to be alone,_ he thought. _Has she had bad tidings about him?_ But if that were so, how could he walk away?

"Arwen," he said, and despite the evening they had spent together, it still felt strange to say her name. "My lady." She turned, her trailing gown brushing the flowers and filling the air with sweetness. "Are you…?" He faltered. "Have you…?"

They had never doubted her. He and Merry had spent many hours talking about it, heads together, voices low. What was Aragorn likely to be doing? Was there anything they could do to help? What would happen? When would they know? But never, not once, had they as much as whispered the possibility that she might be wrong. Fourteen years ago, they would have laughed at the very thought of it. That someone in Michel Delving should know instantly that a friend in Buckland was in danger? Impossible! Such things happened only in stories. Now they had friends who could do things that to any hobbit, would seem like magic.

Arwen smiled. "The danger that I foresaw has passed."

"Passed? Oh. Oh. That's good." Stupid words, he knew. He wanted to move closer to her, but was scared to crush the lovely flowers around her. "Was it a battle?" A battle was bad. Winning it was good, of course, but it was too much to hope that nobody had died. They always did, even if the history books counted it as a great victory.

She shook her head. "Not a battle. There will be no battle now, not there, I hope."

"Not there? Then where? Will-?"

He stopped himself abruptly. _Fool of a Took!_ he berated himself, hearing it, as he always did, in Gandalf's voice. There would be time for questions later. She was a wife who had spent the last two nights knowing that her husband was in danger, and knowing that there was nothing she could do to help him. Now she had just found out that the danger was past. Aragorn was safe. Everyone was safe, because surely Arwen wouldn't be smiling if she knew that Aragorn was grieving for a fallen friend.

"Well," he said, "I'm very glad to hear it. It's excellent news. The best." He smiled, and was embarrassed to find it turning into a huge yawn. He let the yawn, in its turn, become a laugh, and she laughed, too. Her laugh was like sunlight on the waters of Lothlórien. His was a silly thing, just the laugh of a hobbit, but it felt good to laugh together, and even better to have a reason for laughter.

* * *

He was in the wrong company, Aegon thought, as he stood guard on the gate. Yesterday, the third company of the Citadel Guard had been stationed in the courtyard, guarding the White Tree. Yesterday it had rained on and off all day, and Aegon had spent half of it standing still and impassive as rain dribbled off his high helm and down the back of his neck. Today they were on gate duty, protected by the tunnel from whatever the weather decided to throw at them. Naturally, today the weather was fine. How the lads of the second company would gloat in the mess hall tonight! Yesterday, they'd been nice and dry in the tunnel out of the rain, and today they were outside, enjoying the return of the sun.

Still, he thought, it beat night duty, which the first and fourth companies were currently stuck with for the rest of the month. And at least it wasn't winter. And whether it was winter or summer, it was better now than it must have been in the days of old Denethor. At least now they got cold and wet while guarding a living tree, not an old stump.

His head was aching. He had drunk a little more than he should have the night before. Nothing wrong with that, of course. To be chosen for the Citadel Guard was a great honour, but they were still men, and men had to have their fun when their duties were ended. Nobody minded, as long as their senses were still sharp in the morning, and as long as they could stand on sentry for a double-watch without moving a muscle and without ever ceasing their watch.

He shivered. Perhaps it wasn't the drink. Perhaps he was going down with something, thanks to standing out in the rain all day, after two weeks being boiled alive inside his armour. Night duty would have been a welcome relief during the hottest of days. Only an hour to go until he was relieved. Then four hours off, and another four hours on. He would endure things until then. No choice, really.

And he was ready and alert when the tall man came hurrying along the tunnel. Along with the others, he barred the way.

"I need to see the king," the tall man said. It was definitely an order, not a plea.

"The king is out of the city," Aegon said. "The Lord Steward rules in his stead."

The man sighed in irritation. "He will have to do, then, if the king cannot be found." He had a strange accent, not like anything from Gondor. He wore a grey cloak, and he looked faintly familiar. "Let me through!" he commanded.

Aegon shook his head. "I'm afraid I cannot, lord. All other gates in the city are open, but this is the Citadel gate. I need to know-"

The man looked at him with such contempt that it was all Aegon could do not to take a step back. "I am close kin to the king, and you try to stop me? All the way from Annúminas I have come to see him, and you would refuse me entry to my kinsman's hall?" He reached into his pouch and brought out a small round disc. Upon it, the king's seal was unmistakable, appearing almost to glimmer white in the gloom of the tunnel. "Let me through!" the man commanded.

Aegon swallowed. Definitely going down with something, he thought. He wanted to glance at his comrade beside him, to see what he thought about things, but a Citadel Guard did not waver. He guarded the king and the Citadel, but he also obeyed. This was clearly a man who was accustomed to giving commands, and the unfamiliar accent could well be the accent of Arnor. His cloak certainly resembled the cloaks worn by the Dunedain of the North at the king's crowning. He looked vaguely familiar because he was of the blood of Westernesse, and all those people had a similar look to them. And then there was the token, of course…

"I shall summon an escort for you, lord," Aegon said, lowering his head in a bow.

"No need," said the lord from the North. The token gleamed in his palm. The king's seal. The king's command. Aegon would rather die than disobey his king.

He bowed again, and ordered the gate to be opened.

* * *

"We hadn't thought to see you back so soon," the healer said. "Of course, we never like to see anyone back again. Sick of their faces, we are, after a few days of treating them." He laughed, then turned quickly serious again. "No, if people come back, it means we haven't done our job properly, and have sent them out into the wide world too early. Of course, if it's a soldier, it probably means he's gone and done something stupid like exercising when we've expressly told him not to. But you aren't a soldier, are you."

"No," Lainor agreed, although it hadn't been phrased as a question. "A weaver." Or he had been. He wasn't quite sure what he was now.

"Yes." The healer nodded. There was a glint in his eye that made Lainor suddenly sure that he was much sharper than his prattling suggested. The healers had been kind during his stay in the Houses of Healing, but he had been a prisoner, even so. "Yet now you're back. Is it the old injury resurfacing? Dizzy spells? Or a new one? Your arm's in a sling, but it was your skull that you'd hurt, was it not? The soldiers do that, too: come in for one injury, then go out and get themselves injured all over again. It's just how it is for some people. They live dangerous lives."

But weavers don't, his eyes said. Weavers don't, but thugs do.

"It's nothing," Lainor said, nodding down at the arm. "I'm here to check on someone else. Mínir? They brought him in the night before last?"

"And you're a friend of his?" the healer asked.

He wanted to say yes, but how could he? Yes, he wanted to say, because Mínir had been the only person to visit him here, and the only person who had tried to help him. But what was he to Mínir? Not a friend. He would never be so arrogant as to assume that. "I saw him getting attacked," he said, "and called for help."

"And got that arm saving him." That didn't sound like a question, either.

And stayed with him afterwards, his hands smeared with his blood. Called his name. No response. He was breathing, though, and corpses didn't bleed. Shouting for help, and people coming running. The first had been a ragged man who seemed to know Mínir. The second was a guard who tried to drag Lainor away from Mínir, but the ragged man had turned to him and said, "No, it wasn't him. I saw it but was too far away..." Others had come up afterwards, and he had heard snatches of the words they exchanged with each other. "Poor fellow," and, "near killed for the contents of his purse." Wrong, they thought it. Shocking, and so very wrong.

"But did I?" Lainor asked. "Did I save him?" He shook his head. He hadn't meant to ask it like that. It couldn't be about him. "Is he still alive?"

Two nights he had waited. He had expected them to come for him. "Best get that arm looked at," was all that the guard had said to him, before Mínir was carried away. But Lainor had summoned Mínir. Lainor had sunk so low that he had begged a stranger to help him. It had been a test, in a way. Mínir had promised that he could find Lainor no matter where he was. Lainor had asked him to come, and then he had waited. If Mínir found him, then perhaps he was meant to take the man's help. If he didn't… If he didn't come, then…

But he had come. No need to think now what he would have done if he hadn't. He'd come, and been attacked and half-killed while coming to see him. Surely somebody would be putting two and two together, and deciding that Lainor had deliberately lured Mínir into a trap.

"Does it matter a lot to you?" The healer was watching him with those keen, knowing eyes. But then his face softened, and he smiled. "No, I am not that cruel. He is alive. He is barely aware of his surroundings, which is just as well, because we've had a constant flow of unsavoury-looking characters coming to visit him." He wrinkled his nose. "Some of them are far from fragrant. They claim that he's their captain; would you believe that? But he's alone now. You can visit him if you like."

It was just as well that the healer prattled as he did, because Lainor could not have spoken. It surprised him, the sheer weight of his relief. But now he knew, he should just walk away. Why would Mínir want to see him now? Why would anyone?

He remembered the sight of curtains shivering in the breeze from a window that he could not reach. He remembered the dreams that had come to him, alone and hurting in a bed in this very house.

"Yes," he said. "Yes, I would."

* * *

She found Merry wandering alone in the garden, looking more than a little lost. "Pippin's gone back to bed," he said. "He says he hasn't been sleeping well."

"Who can blame him?" Éowyn said. "None of us have, I think."

It was so easy to think that you were alone. It was so easy to think that you were the only person who found it almost unbearable to be unable to do anything to help; unable to make a difference to the great events that were unfolding so many leagues away. When you caught someone else smiling, it was easy to think, _See? They don't feel it as I do. They don't suffer like me._ She might have thought that once, long ago. Her despair had been all-encompassing, and she had been incapable of wondering if other women felt the same as she did when their men rode off to battle and left them at home.

"I know," said Merry, "but Pippin…" He sat down on a bench, unthinkingly choosing the one that was too low for her. When making the garden, Arwen had placed the bench there for visiting hobbits and for the children that she hoped to have one day. "He's younger than me. I don't suppose it makes much of a difference now, but it did when we were young. I was always told to take care of him. We…" He ran his hand through his hair, looking a little embarrassed. "We used to get into scrapes, and sometimes they were almost dangerous ones, but Pippin was always cheerful. No matter what we did, he stayed cheerful."

"He still does," Éowyn said.

"Yes," Merry seemed to agree, although he shook his head slightly as he said it, perhaps unconsciously. "But I always took comfort from it: that's the strange thing. You know how it is when you're a child, and something's a bit scary, and you look anxiously at your parents, and you see that they look happy and relaxed. So then _you_ relax, too, because you know it can't be that bad."

Éowyn nodded. She had been so cheerful around her own little ones these last few days that at times it had felt as if her face would split from smiling.

"With me, it always worked the other way round, too," Merry said. "I was older than him, but it was as if… If Pippin was still cheerful, then it couldn't be that bad. It wasn't big or scary enough to scare a little baby like him." He gave the sad, fond smile of someone lost in memory. "It was like that during the war, too. When we were with the orcs. At Isengard. I was putting on a brave face for him, and he was putting on a brave face for me, but between the two of us, we pretty much ended up convincing each other that everything would turn out well."

"And it did," Éowyn reminded him.

"Yes," said Merry. "It did." He laughed. "Listen to me! Pippin's admitted that he hasn't been sleeping well and has gone back to bed in the middle of the day. That's all. By the way I'm talking, it's as if…" He shook his head, and did not finish.

It was only natural, of course. They had endured a difficult few weeks and an even more challenging few days. When water was building up behind a dam, the smallest of cracks could cause it all to come bursting out.

 _I wish Faramir would go back to bed,_ she thought, because whenever she had woken during the night, he had been wide awake beside her. "Maybe we should all go back to bed," she said.

Merry shook his head. "I couldn't. I don't think I could sleep." He stood up, and she noticed that he was wearing his sword. He was clearly unused to having it there, and the sheath scraped against the stone bench. He grimaced at it. "It still feels wrong," he said, "but all the men in the Citadel wear them, and…" He let out a breath. "Foolish, isn't it, to feel that wearing a sword can make a difference to whatever dangerous things Strider's been getting up, but that's how it feels."

"I know," Éowyn said, but her belt was empty. Every morning, she took the sword from the chest, and every morning, she placed it regretfully back again. In Gondor, ladies wore no swords. She was a Shield Maiden of the Riddermark, but she was also the wife of the Steward of Gondor, and although she refused to change who she was, she could not undermine her husband's authority by causing consternation wherever she went. It was just as Merry had said. At dark times, children looked to their parents to show them how afraid they needed to be, and the people of Minas Tirith looked to their leaders. She had urged Faramir to keep the gates open for just this reason. How, then, could she be seen in public wearing a sword?

"I know," she said again, and she held out a hand to him. "As neither of us can sleep, and Pippin and Faramir aren't with us, what shall we do with our day?"

Merry thought about it for a little while. "Lunch," he said, at last. "Lunch would be a nice start, and maybe a nice pint of beer."

Éowyn laughed, and laughed far longer than his words merited. And that, she realised, was why he had said them.

* * *

"The wind has changed," Legolas said. "It blows from the south-west."

Éomer knew too much about elves to doubt him, but the air seemed still to him. It felt like the quiet before a storm, or the stillness after one. The rain had stopped, and the air was warm and damp. It made him eager to be doing something. It made him eager to be gone.

"From the south-west?" Gimli gave a disgusted snort. "Then it comes from Mordor."

"Passes over Mordor," Legolas said, "but comes from the sea. Ah, the sea! It brings sunshine after rain. Even now, the sun shines in Ithilien."

"And it is to Ithilien that we must go with all haste," said Gimli, "if I understand things aright."

"It is," Aragorn confirmed. He still looked weary, Éomer thought, but only to eyes that knew him well. He had slept for four hours, before emerging from his tent to reveal what had unfolded between him and Samir. By necessity, he had kept it short. Gimli had asked the most questions, but Éomer had kept his questions to practical matters of what would happen next. There would be time enough for a detailed telling afterwards.

"Are you sure you can trust this Samir?" Again and again, this was the question that Gimli returned to most often. "Are you sure you can trust him to take his army home?"

Aragorn was silent for a while. If Aragorn had been an elf, Éomer would have thought that he was using his keen vision to gaze into the distance. Perhaps he was, if only in thought. "I believe that we can," he said. "And he is not unobserved. We have scouts watching his movements, just as he has scouts watching ours."

"You know this?" asked Gimli.

Aragorn smiled. "I said that they could. We are far from being friends, Samir and I. We watch each other like a pair of circling wolves, alert for treachery. If either of us starts advancing instead of withdrawing, then the other will be ready to face them."

All around them, the army was striking camp. As Aragorn had slept, Éomer had watched the news sweep through the army. Several important captains had gone with the prisoners to meet Samir, and had heard the negotiations between Aragorn and the enemy leader. Aragorn had given them permission to tell the other captains what had transpired, and between them, to announce it to their men. Éomer didn't know how the men-at-arms of Gondor had received it, but he knew how the news had been received by the Riders of the Mark.

The sons of Eorl had always loved great feats of war, but they had lived through a war more dreadful than anything their grandfathers had ever seen, and they had come to love the peace that war earned. Had Éomer commanded them to retreat in the face of Samir's army, they would have obeyed him, because they were a loyal people, but they would have found it hard to endure. "But this was just a shadow of a war," Éomer had told them. "The true enemy lies elsewhere. We do not retreat. We have shown our mettle, and it is in part because of our skill at arms that this Lord Samir was so quick to accept a truce."

Not a retreat, but an honourable withdrawal from a near-battle that had been averted. Samir and his army had been tricked, and it was a shame to shed the blood of men who only opposed you because they had been duped by a lie. Every Rider of the Riddermark would willingly die defending their homes or the homes of their allies, but they had no desire to die in a dishonourable cause. Far better to turn and fight the lords of Umbar, who had used trickery and lies, as Saruman had done.

And they remembered Cenred, who had offered himself up as a hostage, because he wanted this truce to hold.

"But you mean to leave today," Gimli said, "before the army does. Who will lead the army if Samir betrays you?"

"I must leave," Aragorn said. "On fast horses, without the men-at-arms to slow us down, we will be back in Gondor within days. Haste is needed now. Even if they march an extra ten miles a day, an army on foot will be too slow."

"So they march slowly back through the Brown Lands," said Gimli, "with one eye on the east, in case this Samir goes back on his word, and one eye on the west and the south, where you say the real war will happen. Their leaders gone…"

"There are many captains of Gondor," said Aragorn, "who led companies, and led them well, long before Gondor had a king, and long before the Lord of the Eorlingas rode with them as an ally. I have chosen one to command the army. He will do it well."

And it would not be Éomer, not this time. This time, when Aragorn left the army, Éomer would be riding alongside him. The muster from the Eastfold would have reached the Anduin now. When they reached Cair Andros, Éomer would have an army of his own.

"Dol Amroth has mustered," Aragorn said. "The fleet appears scattered, but each ship is ready to respond and to go where it must. The southern fiefs are ready. We could ill spare the army that I brought north with me, but spare it we must, until it can march back south again. But at least we do not have to fight a war on two fronts. That was the fear that drove me from the start."

"But there remains one problem," Legolas said.

"Yes," said Aragorn. "The agent of Umbar. They had agents in the city; this we know. Would such agents allow us to march out of the city and out of their sight? I believe not. They must have an agent hiding in the army, and by now he knows that the plan to set us at the throats of the clansmen has come to naught. What will his next move be?"

"You do not know?" Gimli shook his head. "You have seemed to know everything these last few weeks."

"No," said Aragorn. "No, I have not been able to discover who he is, and I do not know what his next move will be. But he will make one; of that I am sure."


	20. Shards

**Chapter twenty: Shards**

From _Remaking the Window,_ byHannith of Tharbad, F.A. 926

Some events take place in the public eye, and there is barely a person alive who has not heard of them. Such was the case with the attempted assassination of King Elessar in F.A. 12. By the end of the month, everyone in Gondor had heard about it, and we can read about it in a thousand different sources.

Other events take place in private, and nobody outside ever knows. Sometimes they are deliberately kept secret: the agents of Umbar plotting in their darkened rooms, or Elessar and Samir meeting in a wain to shape the future of the region. We will never know what was said between them. We know what came out of these private meetings, of course, but we will never know what words were spoken. We will never know what emotions filled the hearts of the men who said them.

Sometimes events are not meant to be secret, but no record of them has survived the passage of years. At the time, perhaps, everybody knew about them, but for some reason, few of them wrote them down, or the letters that they wrote have not survived.

Such is the case with the infiltration of the Citadel by an agent of Umbar less than three weeks after the attempted assassination of the king. For centuries, it has gone unknown. It is only thanks to a chance discovery last year that we know about it at all. Was it always secret, or was it once widely known? Surely it was, since the results of his infiltration were so dramatic. With death and violence in the Citadel itself, surely it could not have gone unnoticed!

With only one scant record available to us, all we have now is questions. How did the agent enter the Citadel? How did he hide himself once he was inside? What did he feel, knowing that his accomplice languished in prison? Did anyone come close to discovering him before he made his move?

For a historian, the greatest sorrow is knowing that so much of the past will never be known. Most people leave no trace that outlives the loved ones they leave behind. Even the great ones, who stride across history like giants, leave so much of themselves unknown. They live a public life, these men and women, but behind the mask, their true self is often lost to us.

The past is like a beautiful, painted window, now shattered into shards. History is those broken shards, and we historians try to piece the shards together again, but the window will never again be whole.

* * *

The world had shattered into shards of glass. Sometimes they pierced him, and Mínir moaned aloud with the fierce pain of it. Sometimes they showed him reflections, and he lost himself in them. He wandered in the streets of his childhood, as angry stall-holders cuffed him for stealing apples. He stood alone in an empty city and knew that he was sick. He was chasing an army across a barren plain, desperate to catch up with it. He was a rat, scuttling through the shadows as tall men laughed with booming voices.

He opened his eyes. The pain was there again, stabbing him. _Dreams,_ he thought. _The other shards are dreams._ He woke to pain, slipped into a dream, and woke again. Again and again, he passed between the two. It felt as if mere hours had passed. It felt as if he had been here for weeks.

"What…?" he managed. He saw a window, a shape, a hand.

People had been talking. He remembered voices. "…couldn't stop it," someone had said. "I'm sorry." Someone had patted him awkwardly on the hand. "…the weaver," another voice had said. "If it hadn't been for him…" Other voices had spoken softly and came with hands that smelled sweetly of herbs. Far louder than those voices were the voices that must surely have come from the dreams. He had seen strange things: the world turned upside-down and shadows talking.

"Where…?" he asked, but he knew where he was. This was a healing house. He was not important enough for the Houses of Healing on the sixth level, but one of the lesser houses, perhaps. He remembered leaving his dwelling. He remembered entering the garden, and then…

No. Before that. They had been celebrating because an enemy agent had been taken. Why had he been attacked? Revenge? Not because he had been getting too close to discovering something, because that was over now. Too late for that.

"The weaver," he murmured. "Lainor. I was going to see him, and then…"

"It wasn't me," someone said. There was too much light from the window. The face was a shadowed one. "You have to believe me. It wasn't me."

 _Who?_ Mínir wondered, but thinking was too hard for him. He closed his eyes, and let the reflections take him.

* * *

Éowyn's first thought was that somebody was there. A sound, perhaps? A scent of something that did not belong in the room? Motes of dust in a sunbeam, as if somebody had moved through the room just before her, and the dust of their passage had not yet settled?

She said nothing, just breathed in and out again, and took a careful step forward. Scrolls were piled up on the shelves, and from one of them a red ribbon dangled, a broken seal still attached. It was swinging slightly, as if somebody had touched it.

Almost she wished for her sword, but when she had taken another step, she knew that she was alone. The window was not quite shut; perhaps that was what it was. There was little breeze, and the papers on the desk lay still, but perhaps one of them had rustled when she had opened the door. Perhaps somebody had opened a door on the far side of the building, and the draught was what had set the ribbon swinging.

There was nobody in the space behind the door. There was nothing underneath the desk except for a hidden pile of books, and the sight of them brought a smile to her lips. Faramir liked to have books around him as he worked. Sometimes, when the day's work had come to an end, he would pick up a book, meaning to read just a few pages, and end up losing himself in it for hours. At home in Emyn Arnen, his private study was a mess of scrolls and books, although his public office was tidy to the point of being too bare. When people came to see him, they saw the composed, self-possessed Steward of Gondor, but she and her children saw the man behind the mask.

But he was not here. This was not one of those days when she would find him lost in reading; when she had to remind him that everyone was waiting for him before they could eat. The papers on the desk bore yesterday's date. The pen was dry and the chair was cold.

"Faramir?" She found herself saying his name, even so. She felt a shiver run down the back of her neck. It was being here in his private space, she thought, when he was away from it. There was such a sense of him here, from the ordered scrolls and papers, to the hidden books below the desk. It looked as if he had been here a moment before, and was just about to come back. There was even a flagon of wine ready for him to drink, with a bowl beside it, covered with a lid.

She moved round to the far side of the desk, but did not sit down in his chair. Raising the lid, she saw that the bowl contained brightly-coloured confits, and she wrinkled her nose at the intense sweet smell. They were not to her taste, but someone in the kitchen had clearly decided that Faramir needed a treat to cheer him up. They older servants liked to mother him like that in Emyn Arnen, too.

"Éowyn?" She heard Merry calling her name from the hallway outside.

Placing the lid back on the bowl, she walked to the door. One more look back, and then she was outside, closing the door quietly behind her. "He isn't there," she said, "but he might be soon. There's food and wine laid out for him."

"Food and wine?" Merry said eagerly, but then he laughed, and she knew that once again, he was poking gentle fun at his perceived fondness for such things. The laughter faded, and he frowned. "It's strange, though. I met a servant who was sure that she had seen him walking down this corridor just a few minutes ago. Mind you, she only saw him from a distance, so I suppose it could have been someone else. After all," he said, as he laughed again, "from behind, these Men of Gondor all look the same to us, just as we hobbits doubtless look the same to them. There's one kitchen maid here who still can't tell the difference between me and Pippin. Can you believe that?"

Éowyn shook her head gravely. "I would have thought she would have learnt by now. You both pay so many unofficial visits there in search of food and drink, after all."

"Indeed," said Merry, apparently entirely unoffended, and Éowyn laughed.

She had laughed more today than she had laughed in days, she realised. She only wished that she could find Faramir, so he could share the laughter, too. He needed it more than any of them.

* * *

He should probably leave, Lainor thought. What was he doing here? It wasn't as if Mínir would derive any comfort if he awoke and found him here. They weren't friends. Mínir either distrusted him or pitied him, and you couldn't build a friendship out of that. Even if it _had_ been possible, it wasn't any more. Mínir had been attacked when coming to see him. He wouldn't want anything to do with him after that.

 _Yes,_ he thought, _I should go._ But somehow he kept on sitting there, quiet beside the bed. He had nowhere else to go, not really. He would stay until someone else came, someone with a better claim to be here.

But no-one came. Time passed slowly. A healer came, fussed round Mínir's bed for a while, then turned her attention to Lainor himself. He tried to flap her away, tried to say that he was nobody, that he didn't need her, but she was insistent. His arm hurt less after she had gone.

He wandered to the window. The sun was shining again, but the last of the rain had not quite burned away, and shone like silver on the leaves of the trees. Dappled shadows in the grass made him think of patterns woven in cloth. He thought of his loom, languished untouched. He wished…

Mínir stirred again, and his eyes blinked open. Lainor stayed in the window, steadying himself with a hand on the sill. Mínir frowned towards him. "Who is it?"

The light behind him. Ah, yes. Lainor returned to the bedside and sat down. "Lainor," he said. "I was there. I think you were coming to see me. I'd asked you to, anyway. I think I'd turned it into a test. If you came… If you could find me, then… Well, then I would…" He couldn't finish it. He shook his head. "So I waited in that garden, and evening was coming on. And someone attacked you. I heard a noise and I ran to see what was happening. I tried to stop it, honestly I did. I grappled him and stopped him from landing the killing blow. Got this arm, doing that. But I couldn't… He ran away. I didn't…"

"Who?" Mínir asked. His voice was scratchy and his lips were cracked and dry.

"Lainor," Lainor said again. "I know what it looks like, but it wasn't anything to do with me. You have to believe me. I'm sorry. It's my fault because you were coming to see me. My fault because I was hiding in a deserted garden. My fault, but not because I meant it to happen. I'm not…"

"Who?" Mínir asked. "Who was it? Who hit me? Why?"

He hadn't heard a word of it, Lainor realised. Lainor had babbled everything too fast, while Mínir had been blinking in the first confusion of waking. He wanted to say it all over again, but clenched his fist, driving his nails into his palm, and forced himself to stop. _Selfish!_ he chided himself. Selfish and self-absorbed, just like Rosseth had said. Mínir was the one who had almost died. What did it matter if Lainor had to go a few more days without hearing the words, 'I know. I know it wasn't you.'

What did it matter if he never heard them?

The very thought made him want to moan, but he took a deep breath, and managed to speak quietly. "He ran away," he told Mínir. "But when I got there, he was rummaging in your pouch and taking something from it. He was just a common thief, I think."

"My pouch," Mínir rasped. "Where is my pouch?"

* * *

"I wonder where Pippin is," Merry said. "Not sleeping any more, anyway. I checked." He was swinging his legs to and fro as he sat on the stone bench, and his toes were brushing the tips of the blades of long grass. "I wonder if he's been trying to find me."

Elboron shrieked with laughter. Watched by his patient nurse, he and Eldarion were busy chasing butterflies through the flower beds. More than one plant was getting unfortunately squashed by childish feet. Éowyn hoped that Arwen would not mind. Elboron was used to playing freely in the gardens of Emyn Arnen, but she didn't know if Eldarion had the same freedom. But as Elboron had led, Eldarion had been quick to follow, and now each was as joyfully messy as the other.

Would Elboron one day be Steward to Eldarion? Or would Elboron live, grow old and die before Eldarion became king? The people of Númenor had long lives, and unless illness or injury took either of them, she knew that she would die before Faramir, even though she was younger than him. Aragorn would live for longer than either of them, and it was likely that the unborn child in her womb would never know a world in which King Elessar was not king of Gondor.

"If he has been looking for us," she said, "I don't think he would have found it hard to find us. They will hear those two even in the Court of the Fountain."

"True," said Merry. His feet grew still. "So where is he? I know I shouldn't worry." He grasped a trailing tendril and began to coil it around his finger.

"But you do," Éowyn finished for him.

"Yes," said Merry. "No." He shook his head. "It's not that. It's just… We lived together when we got back from the War. Did you know that? We shared a house for several years. We were good friends before we left with Frodo, but our journey made us _best_ friends. When we got back, nobody at home had seen what we'd seen. Nobody knew what it felt like to return to the home you longed for, but at the same time, to feel as if you'd left part of your heart somewhere else. Frodo had his own problems, of course, and Sam… Sam had Rosie, and Sam's concern mostly lay with Frodo. So Pippin and I… We understood each other. We were the only two who ever would."

"Yes," said Éowyn, because there was nothing else that she could say. Faramir loved her, but she had never known anyone who had lived through the same things she had lived through, and who had felt what she had felt, both the longing and the despair.

Elboron bounded past them, leaping after a pair of yellow butterflies. Eldarion was following him, far quieter than Elboron, his steps making little sound. Merry watched them until they disappeared behind a cluster of shrubs. She wondered if he wished that he, too, could chase butterflies without a care in the world.

"And now he's married," Merry said, "and has a son. I'm Master of Buckland, with the responsibilities it brings. I should probably be in Buckland now, not here. But I wanted to come. I can see our lives taking us in different directions: duties, family, children. I wanted one last journey together."

"Last?" said Éowyn. "It won't be the last."

"No," said Merry, "but…" He sighed. "And now we're here, sometimes Pippin and I spend whole days together, but sometimes I just want to sit inside and read. Sometimes we go our separate ways. I talk to the healers, or spend time with you, and he appears to have become friendly with the queen. When did that happen? And he's made a friend in the City Watch: Sergon, or something. And it's good. It's good."

"Yes," said Éowyn. As a child, she had known little of friendship, but as an adult, she had come to learn something of its ways. She loved Faramir, but she was glad to see the friendship that had grown up between him and Aragorn and Éomer, just as Faramir was pleased to see her growing friendship with Lothíriel.

But sometimes, sometimes, she just wanted him, and him alone.

 _I wish he were here,_ she thought.

Merry gave a wry laugh. "I'm sorry. Listen to me prattle!" He cocked his head, listening. "Everything's gone suspiciously quiet. I wonder what those boys are up to?"

"Let's find out, shall we?" Éowyn called her son's name, but there was no answer, only silence. She called again, and saw something moving behind the shrubs. She started to run, calling, but once again, silence was her only answer.

* * *

His feet were shockingly loud in the restful silence. A healer looked up and glared at him, but Lainor smiled a quick apology, dodged past the man, and carried on running. Another glare, almost a shout, and Lainor forced his steps to slow. Better to walk briskly and draw no attention, than to run and have everyone stare at him, or, worse, try to stop him.

The door warden watched him as he went past, but made no move. Outside, a few people were moving around, but nobody paid him any attention. He was desperate to start running again, but was afraid to do so. A running man drew the eye. It made people wonder just what he was running from.

A pair of guards from the City Watch were standing on a corner. Did they recognise him? Lainor had no idea how many people knew that he was the owner of the loft that had hidden the assassin. Perhaps the whole city was full of people who were just waiting for him to trip up and reveal his true treachery.

 _Slow,_ he urged himself. _Walk slowly._ They were looking at his bandaged arm, he thought, and wondering what had happened to him. Or maybe they knew. Maybe everybody knew everything.

 _It doesn't matter,_ he told himself. His errand mattered, or mattered to Mínir, anyway. He had become almost frantic, desperate to get up and rush into the streets himself. It had taken two healers to stop him in the end: one to make him lie down again, and one to deal with the damage that he had done to himself by trying to get up too soon. "You'll go?" he had begged Lainor. "You'll tell them?"

"Yes," Lainor had vowed. "Yes, I will."

So here he was, heading to a place he had never been before; a place he had never thought to go. The Citadel Gate was reached through a tunnel through the rock. Guards from the City Watch manned the entrance to the tunnel, but the gate at the far end, Lainor knew, was guarded by members of the Citadel Guard itself. "I have very important tidings," Lainor said, when they challenged him at the tunnel's entrance. "I know you won't let me in. I'm not expecting you to let me in. I just need someone to listen to me. Someone trustworthy. Someone who can take a message to Lord Faramir."

"We're trustworthy," said the guardsman. "Tell it to us."

Lainor shook his head. Inside, he was trembling. Mínir had been most insistent. "Tell the City Watch," he had said, but then he had shaken his head, frowning. "No, not them. It must have been…" He had shaken his head again. "Not them. The Citadel Guard. Get the news to them."

"I need to talk to the Citadel Guard," Lainor said now. _Please,_ he wanted to beg them. _Please._ "Watch me from a distance, if you like. I'm unarmed. My right arm's useless. I just need to talk to someone. A message. A warning. It's important."

A token had been stolen, Mínir had discovered. No coins, no keepsakes, just that one thing. "It was marked with the king's seal,' Mínir had told him. 'He gave it to me to show at the gate if I had really important news, something that the Steward himself had to hear. And now they've got it. What will they be using it for? I don't know. I just… He needs to know. The Steward needs to know."

"Please let me through," Lainor begged them now. "Arrest me afterwards if I do anything you don't like, but please just let me through."

* * *

She found him at last in the Court of the Fountain, sitting beside the White Tree. "Faramir." She said his name, and he looked up slowly, wearily. Behind him, the sun was caught in the branches of the tree, and he was speckled with the shadows of its leaves. "I have been looking for you," she said.

"I was in the prison," he said, "and then with the guard captains, and then…" The words trailed away, and he yawned.

"Arwen says that the danger is past," Éowyn told him, although it was mid-afternoon now, and he must surely know already. "That must surely mean that the king has met with this Lord Samir, and that it has unfolded the way he wished. I wanted…"

He yawned again. _I just wanted to see you,_ she could have said. They had spent the last few days imprisoned by their anxieties, and now that the worst was past, she just wanted a few snatched moments with him. This was not Emyn Arnen, and he was the Steward of Gondor, charged with the rule of the kingdom while the king was away. She had known that she could have no more than moments of his time, but she had wanted those moments. She still did.

If anything, he needed them more than she did, she thought. He had spent the day in a dark cell below the ground, and in making decisions that would affect the future of the realm. She had spent it with Merry and the children. Sometimes she longed for a life that was more like his and wished that she could make a difference to the world's affairs. But sometimes, she knew, he longed for a quiet life that was more like hers. At times, he longed to do nothing with his day but idle the hours away in a garden reading, while his children chased butterflies in the sun.

She could give him a taste of that, if only in words. "After lunch, Merry and I got the boys and we spent a while in the garden. The boys had fun chasing butterflies. I almost lost them for a while." And had almost been afraid for a while, too. She had tried to still that fear. What harm could come to them in the garden of the Citadel of Minas Tirith? "When I found them, they had their heads together, plotting something. They said they hadn't heard me call."

Eldarion had said something about a man watching them from behind the bushes, but when she had looked for him, there was nobody there. The soft earth showed no footprints, and she was no Ranger, to find footprints in the grass. It was just a blackbird, Elboron declared, and not a man at all. He had seen it, so there!

"And after that…" She trailed away. Faramir was yawning again. "You should try to sleep for a while," she said. "Pippin went back to bed this morning."

Faramir shook his head. "I cannot…" Another yawn.

Éowyn took his hand. "Remember the night that Aragorn healed us?" It was a difficult memory for her, but for Faramir's sake, she would speak of it. "Afterwards, he went out and healed many others, but he paused to eat first, and when he healed as many as he could, he retired to sleep. There were many others who needed healing, and the greatest decisions of our time were waiting to be made, but he stopped and slept, because he needed it. You need it. There is no shame in that."

"I… Yes," said Faramir. He let her pull him to his feet. As they walked past the Citadel Guards, she tried to release his hand, to avoid giving them the sight of the Steward of Gondor being led away by a woman, but he would not let her, and held her hand tight.

Hand in hand, they went inside. The climbed the stairs, and walked along the hallway that led to their chambers. "Only for an hour or two," Faramir said. "Then I must…"

"I know," she said sadly, because although she didn't know what it was, she had known that there would be _something_ : some decision to make, some demand on his time. But even an hour or two would help. Even if he could not sleep, perhaps he could read a little, shielded from the world by a closed door. She would make sure that he wasn't disturbed. Perhaps, if he wanted it, she would join him.

As he entered the outer chamber, he unbuckled his sword and placed it on the table. He made no other move to undress, but he sat down heavily and began to remove his shoes. A servant had placed a flagon of wine on the dresser, and she walked over to it and poured him a glass. It was a rich dark red with a sharp scent. She swirled it round in the glass, watching as it caught the light, then offered it to him. He took it, but did not drink.

Moving to the window, she closed the first of the shutters. As she did so, Faramir opened the door that led into their private bed chamber. She reached for the second shutter, but paused for a moment to look out at the wide blue sky. She remembered how desperate Faramir had been for the sight of that sky, after his first day spent in the cells. Perhaps she would-

There was a noise from the bedchamber: a shout, a cry. She heard the sound of shattering glass. She ran into the room, and saw Faramir backed against the wall, held there by another man. The other man had a sword, and its blade was already stained with blood. There was blood on Faramir's sleeve; blood on his shirt. His stockinged feet crunched on broken glass, and he cried out, unable to stop himself. His hand gripped the other man's right hand, desperately trying to drive the sword away. The other man was tall, and there was a knife in his left hand. He lunged for Faramir with the knife, but Faramir's arm darted in under the blow, and came up again, striking the man on the forearm and deflecting the knife.

Pursuing his advantage, Faramir surged forward, pushing himself away from the wall, driving the man back against the bed. The curtain around the bed was almost closed, open only far enough to let someone in. The man got tangled in it, and Faramir almost had him, but then his feet found another shard of broken glass, and he stumbled, he fell…

All the while she had been watching it, Éowyn had been moving. With every fibre of her being, she wanted to scream Faramir's name, but she kept it in. Silent, unseen, she moved to the chest at the foot of the bed. Silent, she opened it, and drew out her sword.

When she had it, she steadied her grip, then rushed forward. As she neared them, her shoe crunched on a piece of broken glass, and they both turned round and saw her. _No!_ She saw the cry in Faramir's eyes; saw his fear for her. But the attacker just laughed. He saw her, and he laughed.

He was still laughing as she brought her sword down upon him. He parried it, catching it with his own sword, and he was _strong_ , strong enough to send a shock wave up her arm. But she had slain a Nazgûl. She stood her ground, and dodged backwards when he came at her with his knife. He was still laughed, still deriding her. He glanced at her briefly, then back to Faramir, always to Faramir, discounting her.

She feinted left, and he brought his sword up casually, disdainfully, as his knife lunged towards Faramir's breast. Beneath his blade her sword slithered, and her aim was true.

He was still laughing as she ran him through, but when he died, he died without a sound.

Faramir was down, still conscious, but bleeding profusely. Kicking away the shards of glass, she threw herself down beside him, and tried to examine him. A deep cut across the upper arm. A slash across the ribs, but when she eased the torn edges of the shirt apart, she thought that it was but shallow. His foot was bleeding badly, but when she touched his face with a trembling hand, she saw that some of the dark red pools around him were wine.

Amazingly, ridiculously, she almost laughed. Faramir grasped her wrist. She whirled round, but the attacker was still dead beside her. Even so, she took his sword and cast it away, and threw his knife across the bed. She swept the glass away with a fold of her skirt, but she kept her own sword close.

"Help!" she shouted. "The Steward is wounded. Bring help!"

But footsteps were already sounding in the hallway, and people were already shouting, even before she had made a sound.

"Nothing bad," Faramir said, smiling faintly. He pushed himself upright, until he was sitting erect, his back to the wall. Éowyn wanted to help him, but she drew back, knowing that there were things that men like Faramir had to do by themselves. She was the same, of course.

"Lord Faramir!" someone shouted. "Lady Éowyn?"

"Here," she said, and it was strange how faint her voice sounded. She turned to the man she had killed. He had the look of Númenor about him. It was too much to say that he could have been Faramir's brother, but the colouring was the same, and something about the face. She wondered who he was, and why he had been hiding behind the curtains of their bed. Then she laughed at herself, because the why was obvious. He had come here to kill.

"Lord Faramir!" A pair of Citadel Guards came rushing in. One of them stopped, took in the scene before him, and turned immediately and rushed away, doubtless summoning healers and help. The other drew his sword and approached the dead attacker cautiously, as if ready for him to come back to life and attack.

"He is dead," Éowyn said wearily. There was no exhilaration after battle. Years ago, when she had longed to ride to war, she had expected to feel exhilaration after a fight, but she never had. All she had felt was sorrow and weariness. "Why were you coming here?" she asked.

"A fellow brought news," he said. "A warning." He turned to Faramir, who was now standing on one foot, supporting himself with a hand on the back of a chair. "My Lord Steward…"

As he spoke, Éowyn looked at the man she had killed; at his waxen face; at the killing wound that no longer bled. Who was he? From Umbar, of course. That, too, was obvious. A slash from a knife had half severed his pouch from his belt, and she touched it, feeling it come apart in her hand.

"An imposter is at large in the Citadel," the guard was saying. "He came in this morning. He had a token with the king's seal."

Her hand closed around it. She brought it up, and uncurled her fingers. The white tree gleamed in the afternoon sun, but now it was stained with blood.


	21. Truth

**Chapter twenty-one: Truth**

From _On the Cusp of Change: the Early Decades of the Fourth Age,_ by Rínor of Ithilien, F.A. 998

The world was changing. When the Fourth Age dawned, it might have seen to the people of Gondor and Arnor that their world had gone backwards. They had a king again. Elves were seen once more in Gondor. Ruined cities were rebuilt and became fair again. Forgotten knowledge was rediscovered. Crumbling scrolls were brought out of dusty archives, and the library of Rivendell was transcribed and made freely available in Gondor and Annúminas.

But even as it returned to the glory days of the past, the world was changing. As the peoples of Middle Earth became comfortable and confident in peace, they started to innovate. So many fields of endeavour were born in those early decades of the Fourth Age. We see it in our modern books, no longer rare, but found in every home, however humble. We see it in portraiture. We see it in those songs and tunes that sweep through half the world, and are sung from Umbar to the Shire.

We see it, too, in the proliferation of historians such as yours truly. History is no longer the preserve of a few wise loremasters, but all can have a say in it. The first university was founded in the reign of King Elessar, and now there are over a hundred. And every university is full of historians, and every one of us has an opinion on the past, and oh, how we bicker!

Many historians have chosen to study the growing voice of the people: yet another of those things that was born at the start of the Fourth Age. In other, less enlightened kingdoms, it might be thought that the return of a long-lost king would lead to the people become powerless, forbidden from making their voices heard. In Gondor and Arnor, it did not. They had a king, but they also started to believe that they had a voice worth hearing.

In F.A. 12, the agents of Umbar exploited this when they deliberately stirred up the people so they clamoured for war. They roused the people of Minas Tirith in the hope that this would force Elessar to go to war against the shadow enemy that they had created. My fellow historians claim that this was thus the first war shaped by public opinion. To make things happen, the agents of Umbar manipulated not the king, but the people. When the army marched, it did so because the people demanded it.

This argument is not without a germ of truth. However, I will argue that if the world was changing - and it was - the wheels of change turned slowly. The agents of Umbar exploited popular opinion, true, but at home, they expected instant obedience and ignored the mutterings of the people they ruled. Elessar marched north when the people demanded it, true, but as we know now, he did so because he knew that it was necessary. He had a daring plan, a plan that he kept to himself.

And when the time came to turn that army round and march home again, the decision was his alone. Elessar and Samir decided the fate of their armies, and nobody else was party to those debates. Samir had a difficult fight to get his lords to accept his decision. Elessar did not have to fight, but some of the men-at-arms from his army have left us letters and diaries that show us their opinion.

Most were relieved that they did not have to face death so far from home. Some looked back at their last two weeks of sore feet and scant rations, and regretted that it was all for nothing. Most were furious at Umbar, who had tried to trick them into getting embroiled in a futile war against men who had also been tricked. Some were consumed with worry about friends in the southern fiefs, who would be the first to face the might of Umbar.

But all accepted the wisdom of their king. He had marched them out, and now was telling them to march back. Yesterday the "Easterlings" were their enemies; today they were not. They believed utterly in the wisdom of their king. If he commanded it, it was right. If he commanded it, they obeyed.

The world was changing, yes, but in those early years of the Fourth Age, I contend, it was still a world that largely looked back to the past.

* * *

Last time he had left in the quiet of the morning, with only Gimli to see him on his way. This time, half the army turned out to watch, and even those who were still busy with their duties paused, if their captains allowed it, as Aragorn and Éomer rode out.

The time for secrets had passed. Aragorn had spent most of his life shrouded in secrets, with his true identity hidden from all but a few. When he had raised the banner of Elendil and come to the aid of Minas Tirith, he had thought that at last he would be free to live in the light of truth. At last he could be open about who he was, and free to proclaim his love for Arwen. But it seemed that even a king must have his secrets. When your enemies came against you with spies and whispers, it was necessary to counter them with whispers of your own.

Besides, he thought, with a wry smile, sometimes he found it hard to leave a life of secrecy behind. Sometimes he craved an anonymous life. Sometimes he longed to don his tattered clothes and walk about unseen. Journeying through the wilds with Mablung had felt, in a way, like coming home.

But now that time had ended. Horns sounded: the joyous horns of the Rohirrim and the more measured trumpets of Gondor mingling into one wild sound. Aragorn raised his hand, saluting the men who had gathered to watch them depart. The trumpets fell silent. The men stood in solemn lines, waiting for him to speak.

This was not the time to move them. This was not the time to rouse them to great feats of arms. This was not the time to strengthen their hearts or inspire them with stirring words. They were not facing battle, just a long march home.

"A cunning enemy has tried to make fools of us all," he said. "They wanted us to become embroiled in a devastating war with people who have been likewise duped. But now the hidden hand behind these lies stands revealed. The people of the clans were never truly our enemies, and are innocent of much of which they have been blamed. Of _much_ ," he stressed, "because some matters still lie between us, but they are matters to be settled by words, and not by the sword."

They were listening to him, all of them, their faces intent. They had already heard the tale from their captains, but they seemed to cling to his every word.

"Some may call our journey fruitless," he said. "Maybe some of you have already said as much." Many of them shook their heads, perhaps not meaning to. "But it was not fruitless!" he declared. "When the tale of this summer is written, you will be remembered as men who played your part. When the call came, you answered. Because you were here at my back, Samir of the clans harkened to my words. Because you marched behind me, he gave us peace."

The men cheered. It was a ragged cheer at first, but it swelled to a roar. The captains made little effort to check it. Some of them were cheering along with their men.

"But now I must leave you," Aragorn said, when the men were silent again. "I must leave you and ride south with all haste, for there are other armies there, and battles to be fought. You will follow with all the speed that you can muster, and it may be that we will meet again in triumph on a field in the south."

The men cheered again, and once more the trumpets sounded. Aragorn nodded to Éomer, and then they were away.

There were almost a hundred of them: Éomer's Riders, and over half of the knights of Gondor who had ridden with them from Osgiliath. The rest of the horsemen of Gondor were staying with the army, some as couriers, and some to protect the footmen in case of attack. A party would be sent out to the devastated outposts, to bury and honour the dead. Legolas was coming with Aragorn, but the rest of the elves were staying in the Brown Lands, serving as scouts.

"I thought you weren't giving a speech," said Éomer, shouting to be heard over the pounding hooves. "That, my friend, was a speech."

"Apparently so," Aragorn agreed. _No secrets,_ he thought.

Last time he had slipped out quietly, hoping that the spy in his army would not know that he had gone, and needing Samir's own scouts to remain unaware of it. This time, let the spy know! Let the spy hear his words and know that the lies of Umbar were discovered!

 _The spy?_ he thought, because there was no certainty that there was a spy in his ranks; it was just that he could not believe that they would have let him ride without one. So if there was one, what would he do now? One of two things, Aragorn thought. Either he would seek to escape the army as soon as possible, and carry the news to his masters in the south. Either that, or he would make sure that he was travelling alongside Aragorn, either openly in his party or following him unseen. From there, he would attempt to stop Aragorn from ever returning to Gondor.

"He will try to kill you," Éomer had said, when they had talked about it, earlier.

"Perhaps," Aragorn had said. Foresight was a chancy thing, and it came but rarely, and could never be commanded. Insight came more readily, and sometimes he understood something about a person that was hidden from most. But there were times, many times, when he saw no more clearly than any man. Like anyone else, when faced with a threat from an unknown opponent, he had to ask himself what _he_ would do, if he were in that opponent's shoes.

And he had to be prepared for all things, even as he openly rode south. No secrets? Ah, yes, he had his secrets still.

* * *

Pippin was breathless by the time he reached the Houses of Healing. "Faramir!" he gasped at the door. He remembered who he was talking to, and tried to collect himself. "Lord Faramir… The Lord Steward… Where is he?"

The warden bowed, and waved him in. Walking inside was like walking into memory. He hadn't been here since the days after the battle on the Pelennor, when Merry had been in the healers' care. The smell was the same, and it made the years melt away. Coming here with Merry, so scared that he would die. Worrying about Faramir, afraid that he hadn't stopped things in time. Afraid for Frodo. Saying that last farewell to Merry, when they had both put on a brave face for each other, but both had been so scared that they would never see each other again.

"Lord Faramir?" he asked. "How…?" He swallowed. "How is he?"

"Alive and awake," they told him, "and doing well," and they pointed him down a hallway to the right.

The scent was the same, but as he walked, he realised that the sounds were different. Then, the Houses of Healing had been dealing with the aftermath of a dreadful battle. They had been full to bursting, and many desperately sick people had been forced to remain in their own homes. Everywhere there had been noise and voices: tears and cries of pain. The tears had surprised him. After travelling with Aragorn for so long, he had come to think that all Big Folk were as stern and composed as him. But even Aragorn wept at times; he knew that now.

But now the Houses were half-empty, and even where there were people, the voices were hushed. It made Pippin glad that his feet made no sound on the smooth wooden floor.

He must have taken a wrong turn, because the hallway ended in an open space, with a colonnade of pillars on the far side, overlooking a fair garden. A woman knelt on the grass, picking sprigs of herbs and adding them to her overflowing basket. "Lord Faramir?" he asked her. "I'm looking for…"

"And you have found him." It was Faramir's voice, spoken with a laugh. He was sitting on a wooden seat beneath an ancient tree, and white blossom speckled his hair.

"Oh." Pippin ran towards him. "I thought… I heard…" He pressed his hands to his face, and lowered them again. "I was with Arwen. I didn't hear… She was telling me stories about the distant past, but it isn't distant to her, because she remembers it. Imagine that! It's easy to forget with these elves, since they look as young as you or me."

"Younger than us, I fear," said Faramir, "because the years are passing fast." It seemed like a sad thing to say, but he smiled as he said it. "And there is no need to worry, Pippin. Thanks to my lady, I will live to see those passing years."

"But you're…" Pippin wanted to touch him, but was scared to touch something that hurt. "They say that an enemy got right into the heart of the Citadel." Umbar. That was where the enemies came from. That was what Arwen had told him, anyway. Umbar, where the ships came from. _The Corsairs of Umbar!_ they had shouted, as if it was the worst thing that could ever happen to them, but Pippin had thought all along that Strider was aboard the dark ships. "They say that he almost killed you."

"Who said that?" Faramir asked. "We will have to stop that tale. It will breed too much fear."

"Guards at the gate." Pippin swallowed. He had seen them carrying the dead man out. It had given him a horrible shock to see it. From a distance, the dead man had looked like Faramir, with that dark hair of his, or even like Strider, shrouded in his grey cloak.

"He tried to kill me, that is true," Faramir said, "but I will live. I've got a knife wound and a sword cut, neither of them serious, but together…" Another wry smile. "Together they caused me to falter. My foot feels worse, though. Broken glass," he explained. "That is what will keep me inside for a while. They are making me a crutch, but for now, I must hobble around like an old man, trembling on somebody's shoulders."

"Oh," said Pippin. "Good. I mean…" He shook his head. "No, I do mean good, because I was afraid…" He felt quite weak himself, relieved to find that things weren't as bad as he feared. "You can try leaning on me, if you like," he said, "but I might be too near the ground for you."

Faramir smiled. "I thank you, Sir Peregrin, but I am content here, waiting for Merry and my lady to return. I believe they have gone to get some food. You are welcome to stay."

"Food!" Pippin clapped his hands together, and did it hard, to stop them shaking. As he did so, he saw Faramir's smile fade. The muscles around his eyes looked very tense, and there was a furrow between his brows. He was in pain, and he had come close to dying just a few hours before, by an attacker who had been hiding in his own bed chamber. Of course true smiles were hard to come by.

He settled down beside Faramir on the chair. "Arwen's brothers told her lots of stories of Aragorn as a young man," he said, "and all his various adventures, and now she's told me. Do you want to hear them? There's nothing embarrassing," he hastened to assure him. "Nothing inappropriate. There was one I particularly liked. It was about a cat…"

"I think he's already told me this one," Faramir said, "but I'd like to hear it again." He smiled again, and several times during the story, he laughed. But long before the story ended, he was asleep, and the furrow between his brows was smoothed out, and the muscles beside his eyes were at rest.

* * *

All day long there had been shouting. At least one furious group of horsemen had ridden away, but another, faster group had given chase. The next time Mablung had seen those furious horsemen, their leader was draped dead across his saddle, and his followers, disarmed, were being driven along with whips. Samir was trying to impose his will upon his lords; that much Mablung knew. He was trying to honour his agreement with the king. Mablung thought he was winning, but he couldn't be sure.

"Their voices are clear to me," said Lasdir, the elf, "but I do not speak their tongue."

"I understand it a little," said Mablung, "but I don't have your hearing. I can't hear enough of what they're saying."

"And I hear nothing and understand nothing," said Cenred, the man from Rohan, "but am here because I love my lord."

Mablung laughed; he couldn't help it. They had not been badly treated. Samir, he thought, had something to do with that. They could hardly expect to find a warm welcome here in the camp of a people who, until this morning, had thought of them as enemies, but their welcome was less hostile then he had expected. As long as Samir treated them with honour, his loyal men would treat them the same. There were times when he couldn't believe that he was here, that he had volunteered for this. But already he was beginning to think that this was the only place that he could be.

"I saw a man ride in from the east, not long ago," Lasdir said. "He came in great haste. He looked afraid, I think. He spoke to Samir alone, at first, and then Samir made him speak his news aloud to all his lords."

Tidings from the east. Tidings from their home? Was this their proof that the king had spoken the truth, and an army was marching on them from the east, preparing to attack their undefended homes? Mablung moved as near to them as he could, but the voices remained inaudible. The hostages were not bound, but they had been given to understand that they could not wander from a small compound marked out by pegs. A dozen men guarded them. They had food and shelter, but they were not free.

"What happens?" he asked, saying it was well as he could in their tongue.

"Samir wins," said one of the guards, and, "Samir _runs_ ," said another. Then there were knives drawn between the two of them, until a third guard wrestled them both to the ground.

Time passed. Wind stirred the canvas, and it brought voices, too. "True," he heard, then, "Samir! Samir! Samir!" More shouting followed, and a cry of fury. A large group of horsemen rode in from the west, cresting the same hill that Mablung and the king had climbed in the dark.

"They are the other half of the raiding party that you fought three days since," Lasdir told Cenred. "They were roving in the north, and did not see us. Samir must have called them home."

Mablung waited. The wind came in gentle breaths, and each breath brought words that he could not quite hear. After a while, everyone started moving. Tents were struck. Horses were brought out and saddled. "Do they ride west?" he murmured. He clenched his fists. _Please, please, don't let them be riding west._

"West?" echoed a young man who stood apart from all the others. He had come to stare at them several times already that day. He looked at them as if they were fascinated by them. He looked at them as if he hated them. He was one of the prisoners who had been handed over the day before, Mablung realised. He had spent two days as a prisoner of Gondor. That explained the hatred, but it didn't explain the fascination. It didn't explain the sorrow that even Mablung could read so clearly on his face.

"Why?" Mablung asked, although he hadn't really intended to speak. "Why sad?"

Because he had been captured, the young man said bitterly. Captured, and his lord was dead. Captured, and Samir had asked him to tell the truth. _Truth._ Mablung missed the next part, the words coming too fast and too unfamiliar. Then the young man said something about how he'd betrayed them all. He'd told Samir that his enemies were good. "But you won't understand me," he said. "You're just one of _them_."

"I understand enough," Mablung said quietly. "And why sad? Truth was asked for. Truth was told."

They were riding east, he saw. They were definitely riding east. Already the vanguard was moving. Whatever battle Samir had been fighting with his lords, he had won it. The messenger's news was spreading from mouth to mouth, and setting everyone who heard it on fire. They were moving with haste. They were heading home.

"Truth brings us peace," he said. "Truth saves your home."

 _And mine,_ he thought, almost shuddering with the relief of it. _And mine._

* * *

The problem with going back to bed during the day, Pippin thought, was that you just weren't sleepy in the evening. After Faramir had fallen asleep, he had enjoyed a pleasant bite or two to eat with Merry and Éowyn, but now Merry said that he was tired and wanted to go to bed. It wasn't even properly dark yet! Well, he could understand it, he supposed, but he knew that he wouldn't be able to sleep for a good long while.

"Are you coming?" Merry asked, pausing near the tunnel that led back to the Citadel.

To sit alone in their shared living room, while Merry slept in his bedroom next door. To sit with a book on his lap, perhaps, only to realise that he had been staring at the same page for half an hour, but couldn't remember any of the words. To hear the sound of footsteps in the hallway outside, and wonder there was a second intruder in the Citadel. To lock the door with trembling hands. To want Merry to wake up, to talk to him.

"No," he said. "I'm not tired. I think I want…" He shook his head. "I don't know. I'm just… I'm not tired. I might find somewhere to grab a quick drink. Remember that tavern we went to down near the Great Gate? I liked that one. It reminds me of the Prancing Pony, but maybe that's just because it's full of Men." And talk and bustle and song and laughter. He tried so often to provide laughter for the others, but sometimes you just needed to go to a place where the cheerfulness was provided by everyone else.

"Pippin…" Merry said, taking a step towards him. "Are you…?"

"Fine," Pippin said cheerfully. "I'll be back soon. Just a couple of quick beers."

But not all the way down to the lowest level, he thought, because that was altogether too far to walk. Were there inns on the sixth level? There was that nice little cosy ale-house where Seregon had taken him. Now, where was that again…?

He wandered a little, and then there was Seregon himself, standing at the place where two streets crossed. He looked a little lost, his face almost grey in the gathering twilight. "Seregon!" Pippin called him by name. "I was just thinking about you," he said. "About that ale-house with the terrace on the roof."

Seregon was slow to notice him, and even slower to turn to face him. He blinked as if returning from a dream. But if it was a dream, it was not a good one, because his hands were clenched at his side, and they kept on opening and then closing again into tight fists.

"The ale-house?" Pippin prompted him. "Are you off-duty?" It was a blatant hint, he knew, but he couldn't bring himself to care. It looked as if Seregon, too, could do with the comfort of lively chatter after a hard day.

"Yes," Seregon said. "I am." His fists opened and closed again. "Do you want…?"

"That would be lovely," Pippin said.

Seregon began walking, and Pippin trotted along beside him. This was a useful thing for him to do, he reminded himself. He had seen how Faramir had reacted when he had thought that Pippin had heard about the attack through general rumour. Clearly nobody outside the Citadel was supposed to know about the attack on Faramir, although the healers knew that he had been hurt somehow. As they drank, he could subtly probe Seregon to see if the news had spread to the City Watch. He could listen discreetly to the chatter from the other tables, and see if this secret, too, had been deliberately spread throughout the city.

"Are you by yourself again?" Seregon asked, as he led them away from the main street and into a narrow lane. In the broad streets and the squares, it was mid-evening, but here in the back lanes it was almost night. "I thought there were two of you."

"There are," Pippin said, "but Merry was tired. He's gone to bed. We haven't had much sleep lately, you see, what with worrying about…" He stopped himself just in time. "The war," he said. "But I can't sleep, at least not yet."

"Why?" Seregon asked. "Has something happened?"

The lane turned left. People were talking in a room up above, and a dog was barking. Was this the way Seregon had brought him before? Pippin tried to remember, but everywhere looked different in the gloom.

"No," he said. "Yes. It's just…" He sighed. "It's this war. Why do there have to be wars? We're not…" He stopped, and sighed again, shaking his head. "No, let's not talk about wars out here in the dark." He hurried onwards, drawing level with Seregon, and then going ahead of him. Above him, the upper storeys and the rooftops were still in the light, and a woman was leaning on a balcony, looking down at them. Pippin waved at her, although he wasn't sure that she could see him. "Where is this ale-house?" The sooner they were in it, the better. He needed light and laughter and a crowded place

"Not far," said Seregon from behind him. "Not far."

* * *

He was the only one left. He had to believe that. He could not take the risk of allowing himself to hope. The ones who had stayed behind in the city must have failed. They were dead now, or prisoners, or fled. One of them had talked under torture, or blundered so badly that their true affiliation had been revealed, and the Steward had sent a messenger to his king. How else could the king of Gondor know about their stratagem? But know about it, he did, and had proclaimed it to the whole army. Umbar was the enemy. Umbar was behind it all. It was against Umbar that they were moving now with all haste.

Umbar! A city more ancient and mighty than any city of upstart Gondor. That's what the loremasters said, anyway, and the firebrands who urged them to hate.

He cared nothing for that. Umbar was his home. His brother had captained a proud ship, and his father had owned a warehouse on the quay. Both were dead now. His grandfather had died in the great ship-burning. His brother had drowned. His father had died of grief and shame. He had almost died, too, as he had stared into a future devoid of hope.

But he lived. He lived. From the ashes a spark had arisen, and the spark had become a flame, and the name of the flame was revenge. He knew of other men of Umbar who had burnt with that same flame, but some of those had set their fires too early. They had come against Gondor in ones and twos, ill-prepared and rash. They had been captured or stopped, their flames quenched.

But he knew how to guard his flame. He had hidden it deep, like a candle in a lantern, protected from the storm. He had taken a false name, and had come to Gondor, just another lordless warrior shattered by the war. For years he had lived in Gondor, first as a mercenary, selling his sword for coin. In time, a lord had taken him into his service. His lips had sworn oaths to false masters. Closer he had come, ever close to the king, waiting for his time to come.

And now it was here. The others were dead or taken. He had ridden with the army to watch the king of Gondor and make sure that he was safely embroiled in war elsewhere. Because of the failings of others, the plan had fallen apart.

But it was not over. The king of Gondor could not be allowed to ride south to gather an army against Umbar. The lords and the captains were fearless, but too many good men had died when the king of Gondor had brought his army of the dead against them. Now the ships and armies of Umbar were full of lesser men, and the lesser men of Umbar were terrified of the king of Gondor and the bright-eyes elves who rode beside him.

No, the king of Gondor could not be allowed to reach the south. As soon as the opportunity arose, he would kill him: tonight, perhaps, or maybe tomorrow. He had more than one weapon in his armoury, and he was prepared to die in the attempt. It was no guarantee of success, but it gave him hope. He had to have hope.

"What are you thinking about, Cúdor?" asked the false comrade at his side. Even after so many years, the false name still felt wrong. "You look lost in thought. I was trying to ask you if you want some stew."

"Sorry." He took the stew: a watery broth made with the scant pickings of this barren land. "I was just thinking about home, and hoping to see it again soon."

* * *

Their nets were full. The shoal had taken them far from shore, and Remdir and his crew had been out at sea for six days. But now the wind was fresh from the south, driving them swiftly back to the shore. Daylight lingered longer out on the open sea, but the skies were clear, and he knew that when night came, it would be a glorious one, full of stars.

Remdir was steering, the wind in his hair. The others were singing quietly, busy with their tasks. No storm seemed likely, and they would be home by the morning of the day after tomorrow. His wife and child would be waiting for him, and he would leap onto the quayside, grinning, and hug his wife, and throw his little one up in the air, "because I've got fishes for you, my darling. Lots of lovely fishes for us to sell, and a little one left over, just big enough for baby to eat."

Home was to the north of them, at the southern tip of Belfalas, but they were too far away to see it. West was where they had come from, and he never liked to look east. All fisherfolk felt the same. Sauron had gone, but superstitions were hard to shift, especially when you earned your livelihood from a thing as wild and unpredictable as the sea.

Finally, he looked south, away to the open sea. And it was as he turned that he saw it. In the south-east, just visible against the fading skyline, there were ships. He squinted, shielding his eyes to block out the lanterns from his own deck, and he was sure of it. Ships from the south-east. A fleet. Black sails. It would be black sails. Of course it would be black sails.

"The Corsairs." He said it quietly, little more than a cracked whisper. Then he shouted it, and all singing stopped. "The Corsairs! Umbar comes against us again!"


	22. One Night

**Chapter twenty-two: One Night**

From _Umbar Resurgent,_ by Azgarzîr son of Zôrzagar, F.A. 84

Of the fleet that was sent against Minas Tirith, not one ship returned. Of the armies that answered the call of the Lord Sauron, few men lived to see their home again.

But a fleet can be rebuilt. It had taken nigh on forty years to rebuild after the Great Burning, but this time, the surviving lords of Umbar knew that they did not have forty years. The king of Gondor would not give them forty years. Fearing that spies would be watching their old warehouses, they moved to sheltered coves, and far inland along deep rivers. There they set their slaves and labourers to work, and by the end of the fourteenth year, they had built a new fleet. It was barely half the size of the old one, and the workmanship was less fine, but that mattered not to them. Umbar had a fleet again, and more than just a fleet, she had regained her lost pride.

Fleets can be rebuilt, and armies can be reborn. In fourteen years, boys grow into men: men who were raised on tales of the crimes of the king of Gondor and longed for revenge. Umbar had a fleet, but Umbar had an army, too.

And she had cunning men. She had patient men, who knew that revenge was worth waiting for. Several agents were sent into Gondor in the years before the sailing of the fleet. Some were instructed to wait and bide their time. Others came later, when the time was near. Fearing that the depleted strength of Umbar could not stand against the arrogant might of Gondor, they tricked the king of Gondor into taking the best part of his strength against a phantom foe in the north.

With the king of Gondor away, it was time to move. The army departed first, for they had a long and slow journey. As they neared the southern reaches of old Gondor, they sent birds back home to command the fleet to sail. Gondor had little warning. Men had been mustering in the southern fiefs, but they did so thinking to march away to the north, against the shadow foe. Little did they expect the enemy that fell upon them from the south!

The king of Gondor had an elvish seeing stone, and his people liked to believe that he knew everything, but Umbar fooled him. Umbar caught him by surprise.

The historians of Gondor tell a different tale. They say that the agents of Umbar were ineffectual. They say that the king was never fooled. They claim that the result was never in doubt: that there never was a moment when their future teetered on a knife edge, and their lords came only a hair's breadth away from death.

What are such tales but lies? By trickery, they defeated the Lord Sauron, and they seek mastery not merely over the people of Middle Earth, but over the very past itself.

* * *

The rooftop terrace looked different in the dark. By day, it had been a pretty place with views of treetops and gleaming walls. There was no such view at night. Scattered lanterns lit the faces of the drinkers, painting them with jagged shadows. It made them look strange, almost grotesque, and not like hobbits faces at all. This was a soldiers' drinking place, Pippin remembered. During the day, the soldiers had been relaxed, enjoying a pint or two during a break from their duties. At night, they were drinking more seriously, and their laughter was turning raucous.

"Did anything happen today?" Seregon asked again, returning to the table with drinks for the two of them. "Someone said they saw a commotion around the Citadel gate."

Pippin took a long swig of his ale. "No," he said, "nothing happened," but he knew that he sounded unconvincing. It was not in the nature of hobbits to lie. Perhaps the lie was unnecessary – Seregon was an officer in the City Watch, after all – but it was best to err on the side of caution. It would be horrible to have panic spread through the city and know that he was the cause. "It's just…"

Seregon swigged deeply from his tankard. He lowered it clumsily, clattering it against the table. It was almost as if he was drunk already, but Pippin didn't think he was. "What?" Seregon asked.

Pippin took another mouthful. "It's surprisingly different from the beer at home," he said. "We use more hops, I think. Perhaps we should send some of our best Shire beer down to Gondor, now that we've started sending you pipeweed." As he spoke, he caught the scent of it. Somebody nearby was smoking weed from the Shire! It was such a familiar scent at home that he hadn't noticed it until now. He clapped his hands in delight. "Old Toby!"

"So what was-?" Seregon asked, but then he broke off. "Old Toby?"

"Pipeweed," Pippin explained. "It's our proudest invention. You're a soldier, so it probably seems funny to you. You think people should be proudest of inventing a new way to make a sword, or… or a new sort of spear, or something. But we're not like that. We take our delight in simple things. Food, of course, and making sure that we have enough time to enjoy it with friends. Drink. Pipeweed. Parties; we do like our parties. And giving presents. We're inordinately fond of that. And getting them, too, of course." He shook his head, smiling. "But I suppose everyone believes that their own home is the best."

"Yes," said Seregon, but he was looking away, so Pippin couldn't see his face.

"And your home's wonderful, too," Pippin hastened to assure him. "That's why this war's so terrible, because what if it ruins everything? Gondor's changed so much in the last few years. It's marvellous how much it's changed! The roads are safe again. There are crops growing in fields that used to be burnt and ruined. You can hear singing in the streets, and children are running around freely. People are free, and there's such _hope_."

Seregon took another long draught, deeper than before. "People are never free."

"Because they have to obey the law? Is that what you mean?" Pippin said. "During the War, I saw places where there were no laws, nothing to stop wild bands of orcs from falling upon you and carrying you away. When there are no laws, the big and strong get to do whatever they want, and there's nothing to stop us small folk from getting trampled. Of course," he admitted, "I expect it's possible for the big and strong to _use_ laws to trample the little folk, but Str- the king isn't like that. Men are banned from the Shire, you know, and he insists that this includes him, although I can't think of any hobbit who would mind if he popped in for a visit. When the big folk have to follow the same laws as the little folk, then the little folk don't get trampled. And we _would_ have been trampled if Sauron had won. He would have made slaves of us all. But he's gone now, and that was supposed to be the end of it, the end of everything bad."

Seregon said nothing. He was holding his tankard very tightly, his knuckles white.

"But now there's going to be killing again, and dying, and people locking their doors and cowering inside, afraid." This time it was Pippin who looked away, hiding the tears that wanted to fall. "Why do Men do this? Why are there people who just want to pull things down? It's hard for a hobbit to understand. We're not a warlike people, you see. We don't have an army, and we don't carry swords. We don't always _like_ all our neighbours, but we live and let live. When we see something lovely, we want to preserve it. Why do so many people like to destroy lovely things? They tried to do it in the Shire, but we stopped them, and now…"

There was a burst of raucous laughter from the next table. Every one of these men was a soldier, Pippin remembered. Each one was wearing a sword.

He had been wrong to come here. Whatever he wanted tonight, this wasn't it. "But listen to me, prattling away!" He tried for a smile. He scraped his hands across his face, scouring away the tears that had not quite started to fall. "I think… I'm sorry," he said. "I think I'd rather go back to the Citadel, after all."

If he was going to be saying these things, he wanted to be saying them to Merry. Who was Seregon but a chance-met acquaintance, a stranger who couldn't be told the truth about so many things? Pippin had no secrets from Merry. Oh, when Merry was sad or scared, Pippin would try to put on a brave face to cheer him up, but he knew that Merry wasn't fooled. Merry did exactly the same for him, after all.

"Thank you for the drink." Jumping down from his seat, Pippin gave Seregon a small bow, such as any polite hobbit would give to his host after a jovial evening. "I just want to…" _Go home,_ he thought, because although the Citadel wasn't the Shire, it _was_ home, in a way, because it was the place where he didn't need to guard his tongue.

Seregon said nothing. "Well… goodbye, then," Pippin said awkwardly.

Seregon watched him go without a word, just picked up his tankard and drained it to the end.

* * *

He would do it tonight. It had to be tonight.

He wanted to wait. Just one more day! Just one more day alive! Just one more day to think about what he going to do and work out every last detail of it. One more day to be certain that he hadn't missed a better way. One more day.

But what was one more day? He had waited fourteen years for this. Fourteen years since the king of Gondor had destroyed the young men of Umbar. Fourteen years of biding his time, and now…

Someone passed him a drink. He accepted it, smiling. The smile felt to him like a skull's grin, but nobody seemed to notice anything amiss.

One more day. After fourteen years, he couldn't risk throwing everything away because he was too rash, too hasty. But everything was already falling apart, crumbling around them like the fallen towers of Mordor. The agents in the city had surely failed. Their hidden hand was revealed, and the king and his army were returning from the east. It could be that this was his only chance. It could be that tomorrow would be too late.

What would happen if he waited? His mind was so full of his goal that he was afraid he might talk about it in his sleep. They were a small party, less than a hundred, and they were riding for haste, without tents to slow them down. He was eating and sleeping barely a stone's throw from the king. He had never been so close to him before. He was afraid…

No, he was never afraid. Of course he wasn't afraid. But this king of theirs had powers beyond those of mortal men. What truths could he glean with those keen eyes of his? What secrets would he learn during another day and night of this?

Yes, it had to be tonight. When the watches had been drawn, he had drawn the darkest hour of the night. Two others were assigned alongside him, of course, but two men were no challenge. He had poisons in his pouch, and powders that would cause a man to drift into a quiet, gentle sleep. And he had his knife and his sword and his bow, and he knew how to move silently in the dark.

Tonight. It would have to be tonight.

Tomorrow? No, he doubted there would be a tomorrow, not for him.

* * *

Éowyn stood unmoving in the doorway, her hand gripping the wooden frame.

She was not afraid. Of course she was not afraid. During the dark days in Meduseld, every morning she had straightened her spine and raised her chin and walked out from her chamber to tend to her lord. When despair had overwhelmed her at Dunharrow, she had girded on her sword and ridden out to face the foe. When the Nazgûl had threatened her lord, she had quailed with terror inside, but had stood firm and faced him.

She was the Lady of the Shield Arm, and her will was strong. She would walk forward. She would let go of the door and take those necessary steps into the bed chamber where she had killed a man.

The servants would have cleaned the blood away. No trace of the killing would remain. Nothing but the knowledge that a man had crept inside their most private chamber and hidden behind the curtains of their bed. Nothing but the knowledge that Faramir could have died, had she been less swift with her sword. Nothing but the memory of him bleeding there. Nothing but the memory of her sword going through flesh, and the life leaving a man's eyes because of it.

 _I can do this,_ she thought, and as she had done so often before, she kept her head high.

A night alone in the bed that had hidden an enemy. A night alone in the place where Faramir had almost died. The stains had been washed away, but it took more than soap and water to wash away blood.

"Of course I can," she said, and she took a step forward.

The footsteps that sounded behind her were so soft that she thought that it might be Merry. Then she felt a sudden stab of fear, and she whirled round, wishing for her sword. But it was Arwen who stood before her. The queen had come alone, without any attendants, and was wearing a simple robe, her hair unbound.

"I have asked them to prepare a guest chamber for you, if you would like it," said the queen. "And there is supper in my chamber, if you would like to share in it."

It was spoken softly, almost as a question. _I am not afraid,_ Éowyn said to herself, and she was not. If there had been a need for it, she would have entered without looking back, and endured the long night alone. But there was no need for it. It was only pride that drove her now, and a stubborn refusal to admit that the events of the day had left her deeply shaken. There was no shame in that. Even mighty warriors sometimes wept.

"Yes," she said. "I would like that. Thank you."

Arwen smiled and turned to walk away. Stepping back through the door, Éowyn closed it and turned its key. She let a long breath, and closed her eyes for a moment. Then, opening them, she followed Arwen, through hallways bright with the flickering light of candles.

* * *

Soon, Éomer thought. It would be soon. They were free to travel swiftly, now that there were no footmen slowing them down. Within two days they would be level with Cair Andros, and a thousand of his men would be waiting for him. After two weeks of slow journeying, hunting shadows, he would be free to gallop joyfully at the head of a great force of Riders, going openly to war.

 _That_ was the sort of war that a lord of the Eorlingas could take pride in! At last the veils of secrecy would be removed, and he would be riding with his ally into open war against Umbar. If there had to be war, let it be an open war! The lords of Umbar had been dishonourable, hiding in the shadows to trick Gondor and the clans into wasting their strength in an unnecessary war against each other. When the enemy played a game of secrets, they had to be countered with tricks and secrets of your own, but it was not the way of the Mark. It was not Éomer's way.

But soon, he thought. Soon…

He looked up, and saw Gimli sitting with a mug in both hands, his eyes gleaming in the firelight as he watched the camp. Legolas sat beyond him, singing quietly. Legolas seemed restful, but Gimli looked as tense as Éomer felt. Aragorn was quiet, his cloak wrapped around him against the growing cold of the night.

Soon, Éomer thought, but not yet. Many secrets were out in the open, but they were still being forced to play the game of lies and shadows. Aragorn suspected that even here, they were not yet free from the machinations of Umbar. Legolas watched the world outside the small circle of their camp, alert for an attacker who came creeping in from the dark, and Gimli and Éomer watched the knights of Gondor, in case the enemy had sworn false oaths and wore the smiling face of a friend. They could not be seen to be too watchful, Aragorn had warned them. If a traitor rode in their midst, let him think himself unsuspected! Let him grow confident and lower his guard! Let him strike early!

Let him be discovered! Éomer reached for the drink that someone had brought him, and took a long draught. Let the enemy be discovered tonight, and then they could throw aside all masks, and ride openly to war!

His mouth still felt dry, and he took another draught from his mug, and then he yawned deeply. He had been awake most of the night before, waiting for Aragorn to return. Then had come a long fast ride, and now a restless night, waiting to see if a traitor attacked.

It had to be tonight, he thought, yawning again. Let the masks of the traitors be ripped away, and then they could safely rest, free from the threat of knives in their backs. Open war against open enemies, and to sleep safely in a camp full of trusted friends!

Soon, though Éomer. Let it be soon!

* * *

The tables around him were empty. Beneath a chair, a discarded mug lay shattered on the tiles. The landlord appeared at the top of the stairs, a broom in his hands, and looked pointedly at Seregon.

Seregon remained where he was. He had drunk too much to trust himself to speak, but not enough to forget the need for caution. Above him in the Citadel, a bell sounded twice. He was on duty at dawn, and dawn came early in the summer. He should have been in bed hours ago, so he could wake up rested, ready to guard the gate. _Ready to stop enemies passing through,_ he thought bitterly.

Perhaps he shouldn't…

He stopped that thought. The landlord worked around him, sweeping up crumbs of bread and scattered petals blown by the wind. Seregon had brought the hobbit here in the hope of gleaning information. Since he had handed the token over, he had heard nothing. Was the man who had taken it even now in the Citadel, laying his snares and preparing to strike? Was he dead? Had he been captured? Had he taken the token, the token Seregon had risked his life to obtain, and cast it away as worthless rubbish?

Every hour, every moment, he had lived with the absence of news. Was the other man even now talking in prison, revealing his name. Footsteps passed on the lane below. Were they coming to drag him away?

Tutting, the landlord crouched down, reaching for the shattered pieces of mug. Seregon looked at the curve of his back and the fall of his hair across his cheek. A free man, who owned his own establishment. In Umbar, he would not be free.

That was because Gondor was weak. Weak and foolish and fond of spouting lies. They took things by cheating, and then liked to fool themselves into thinking that they had won them because they were better and more deserving than anyone else. The sooner Gondor fell, the better, and then he could go home! Then he should shed the false name of Seregon and take up his old name of-

He surged to his feet, pushing the chair back so ferociously that it teetered and fell. The landlord looked at him pointedly, but no knife was drawn, and there was no threat of violence. "Best be going now, sir," he said politely.

"Yes," Seregon rasped. "Yes. Best be going."

 _Where?_ he thought, as he began to descend the stairs. Back to his bare quarters? He had nothing in Gondor. For twelve years, he had been armoured in the knowledge that this was not really his home. Soon the time would come to leave it and take up his old life again. No friends. No wife. No home. No roots. Just twelve years spent living a lie, waiting for the chance to shed it.

He could barely remember his real name.

 _The sooner Umbar wins, the better!_ he thought, stumbling on the stairs and almost falling. He was at risk of losing himself. Once it had become clear that the hobbit wasn't going to reveal any secrets, it had occurred to him that he should take the opportunity that had been presented to him, and kill him. Let the people of Gondor know that their king's power was not without limit! Let them see the king' honoured guest murdered in the king's own city! Let the enemies of Gondor take heart!

 _Yes, I should do it,_ he had thought, and thought repeatedly. But then the hobbit had _talked_ , his eyes alight with love for the world that the lords of Umbar were trying to tear apart. The words meant nothing, of course, but…

 _I must do it,_ he had thought, and, "I must do it," he said now, but he had sat there unmoving and let the hobbit depart, and now… Now…

 _I don't know what to do,_ he thought. Then he almost sobbed it, stumbling blindly along the lane. "I don't know what to do."

* * *

Earlier, Mínir had struggled to drag himself out of the dreaming. Now it was impossible to fall asleep again. The king's token had been stolen. He had lowered his guard and let it get taken from him, and then, to make it worse, he hadn't noticed for two whole days.

Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw it. Sometimes he sank into waking dreams in which a swordsman went on a killing rampage in the Citadel because he had won entrance with the token that Mínir had lost. The king had entrusted him with it. He hadn't thought it had meant that much. Why should it? He wasn't anything special, so why would the king give him something powerful and rare? Lots of people had tokens like it; of course they did.

But someone had seen it. Someone had targeted him. Someone had taken it.

"They listened to me in the end," Lainor had reported. "I don't know what happened afterwards, of course, but somebody went rushing off."

And now nothing. Just silence. It didn't count as dreaming because he was still awake, but he saw a hundred different disasters that could have befallen because of him.

He struggled to rise. Lainor was gone, and when the healers came to see him, they wanted to give him sleeping draughts, but he pushed their hands away, and shouted, "No, no! I need to know!"

It was dark outside, and everything was silent. He managed to sit up; managed to swing his legs off the bed. He tried to stand, but the world lurched around him. He threw out a hand for balance, and an earthenware jug beside the bed teetered and almost fell. Out of instinct, he tried to grab it, but instead he tumbled to the floor. The jug fell, shattering into fragments.

Slowly, slowly, he raised himself to his knees again. Somebody was approaching the door, he realised, and the sound of it was strange, as if they were using a stick. When the door opened, he was slow to recognise the man who entered, but when he did, he was glad that he was already on his knees.

"My lord," he gasped. "Lord Faramir." Why was he here? Had he come in judgement? But, no, he was walking on crutches, one foot bandaged and unable to bear his weight. "What-?" Mínir rasped, but was unable to say any more.

"I am sorry, Mínir," Lord Faramir said gently. "They told me you were hurt. I made sure you were well tended, but I forgot to bring you tidings. It must have been a hard day for you. I am sorry."

"The token…" Mínir gasped. "Someone stole the king's token."

"I know," Lord Faramir said, "and he tried to use it, and he is dead now. No lasting harm was done." He gave a crooked smile. "I find myself unable to help you up, I'm afraid, but if you can get yourself back into bed, I will sit with you, if you will allow me."

"My lord…" Mínir said. "But…"

Faramir sat down wearily, propping his crutches against the wall. "My chamber is large and seems unduly silent," he said, "and I find that I cannot sleep. I would welcome the company, if you…"

But Mínir was unable to speak; unable to muster any words that could be said without weeping.

* * *

All around him, men were sleeping.

 _Now,_ he thought, and now that he was decided, the last of the doubts slipped away. He would try this thing. He hoped that he would succeed, but if he failed, at least he could die knowing that he had tried. He was the last of them left, or so he had to believe, and he could die knowing that he had lasted longer than the others.

And he could die knowing that by doing what he was doing, he was striking at the heart of them. He hoped he would kill their king. If he did not, at least it would be known that he had tried. They thought him a loyal man of Gondor, and they would have to live with the knowledge that one of their own had turned on them and come so close to destroying what they held most dear. Distrust would tear them apart like a wolf rending its prey. They were so proud, so confident, thinking themselves the masters of the world. Now they would spend their time afraid, forever glancing fearfully into shadowed corners, and fearing treachery behind every smile.

He was the only one on watch now. Two others had been drawn alongside him, but they were asleep now. He had no idea what dark magics lay in the powders he had carried with him for so long, but they had kept their potency over the years. They sent a man into quiet dreaming, but so gently and smoothly that they had felt nothing amiss. That was what he had feared most: that they would feel sleep creeping up on them and raise the alarm. But they had not. No alarm had been raised, and he was the only one left.

 _Now,_ he thought. He clenched his fists, digging his nails into his palms, and heaved in a great breath, then let it out again. _Now,_ he thought again, and he closed his eyes, then opened them. The sky was clear above him and the thin sliver of a moon had already set. He had hoped for more cover, but they were still a day out of Ithilien, with its deep valleys and tall trees.

"Now." He moved his lips as if he was saying it aloud. Then he really _was_ speaking, and it was only when he did so that he realised that the decision had really been made, and he was really doing this thing, and doing it now. "I saw something," he said quietly, little louder than a whisper, but without the hissing esses of a whisper, that could carry so far . "Probably nothing, but I need to…"

He trailed away, and listened. Nothing. Nobody moved. Nobody answered. Then he heard a sound, and turned round, but thought it was just someone turning over in their sleep. Slowly, silently, he drew his sword, sliding it from its soft sheath.

"I need to tell…" he said quietly, and stood up. "No, you stay here."

With almost a hundred men sleeping near each other beneath the sky, it was unavoidable that some would be awake. Some would be fully conscious, struggling to fall asleep. Some would be lying in that state between sleep and dreaming, when they could hear words only dimly. Let them think that they were hearing a quiet conversation between two of the men on watch! All was well. Nothing much to worry about. Go back to sleep. And if one of those watchmen should then been seen wandering through the camp with a naked blade in his hand… Nothing to worry about. Hadn't he said that he was going to report the unimportant thing that he had seen?

He started to walk. "What…?" someone asked, but he shushed them with a reassuring, "Nothing. Go back to sleep."

Another step, and another. There had been far more powder than he needed for two men, and before his watch had started, he had managed to seed pinches of the stuff in various jugs and barrels across the site. The camp fires helped. They made everyone who looked at them temporarily blind to the darkness between and behind them. Many of the men of Rohan had sunk early into slumber. Gimli the dwarf was snoring loudly. The king was…

He did not know about the king. _I do not fear him,_ he thought.

Another step. There were no tents on this swift ride of theirs, and everyone slept out in the open, even the king. More luxuries had been brought for the horses of Rohan than the men of Gondor, and-

Something crunched beneath his feet. He froze, waiting for the challenge, but no challenge came. He tried another cautious step, and realised that somebody had scattered the charred remains of a cooking fire. It was now just blackened powder beneath his feet, speckled with sparks of fierce orange.

One more step. Another one. Another one. He passed Éomer of Rohan, fast asleep with a fallen tankard at his side. The elf was sitting up, his back resting against his pack. His eyes were open, his eyes gleaming with reflected starlight.

He stopped. His mouth was dry, and he swallowed; swallowed again. Should he speak again? Should he murmur something about coming here with a report for the king? He tried to do so, but he could not persuade his tongue to move. He tried to take another step, but only shifted his weight forward a little, his feet not moving. The elf did not move. His eyes were open, but he did not blink.

He let out a breath, and it sounded far too loud to him. Another step. Still the elf did not move. Could this be the end of it; so easy? Because that was the king there, asleep beneath his grey cloak. He was melting into the darkness, almost invisible there, but it had to be him, because Éomer and the dwarf and the elf surrounded him, as if they had hope to guard him before sleep had taken them.

Another step. Could he say it? _Sire,_ he thought, _I thought I saw something._ If nobody moved, then everything was going well, but if the king was awake, at least he had an excuse for being here with his sword in his hand. He could salvage things, pretend he meant no harm, and go back to his false life as a knight of Gondor. He would live until tomorrow, and then…?

 _No,_ he thought, and he was almost there. No hand darted out to grab his ankle. No-one shouted in alarm. And finally he was there, standing over the king. There was just enough light to see the toppled tankard beside him. He was close enough to hear his slow, deep breathing: the breathing of sleep.

He tightened his grip on his sword. This was wrong, he thought. This should have been done with his blade raised high above his head, gleaming in the sunlight. It should have been done with a loud battle cry of, "Umbar! For Umbar!" But he couldn't afford to say a word. He couldn't risk raising the sword high, in case anyone saw it.

Half a step more. Closer. Closer.

 _For Umbar,_ he thought. He thrust the blade downwards, aiming at the king's chest, but the king rolled away and it was too late, too late to change the direction of his thrust. The sword tip gouged across the king's back, but the feel of it was wrong, as if it was sliding over armour. He pulled the sword back, desperate to land another blow, and someone grabbed his arm from behind; someone kicked the back of his knees, driving him to the ground; someone pushed him downwards, further downwards, and suddenly all around him people were shouting. His mouth was full of mud and ashes, and all he could hear was shouting.

* * *

There was no avoiding it. Legolas, Gimli and Éomer had moved and acted in silence, but the sudden burst of activity had awoken another man, and his shout had roused still more. Within moments, half the camp knew what had happened. The rest were oblivious, lost in a drugged sleep.

The assassin made no attempt to claim innocence. How could he? He had been caught in the act, after all. He was on his knees, flanked by two captains of Gondor, who held him down with a firm hand on each shoulder. The whole scene was lit by a ring of flickering torches. Beyond the circle lay the scattered forms of the men who had fallen foul of the sleeping draught. That had been a surprise. Too many men had fallen asleep before Aragorn had realised what was happening. By then it had been too late to do anything without alerting the assassin.

"You serve Umbar?" Aragorn asked sternly.

The assassin said nothing. Aragorn had noted the faces of all the men who rode with him, but there had been nothing about this one to draw his attention. His colouring was suggestive of the south, but there were many in the coastal parts of the southern fiefs whose colouring was much the same. If hatred had blazed in his eyes before he had made his move, Aragorn had not seen it.

"I know that you do," Aragorn said. In truth, it was supposition rather than knowledge, but Aragorn knew what stories were being told about him. Need, not choice, had led him along the Paths of the Dead, but the tale of it had spread across the southern kingdom and beyond, and had grown in the telling. He was a mortal man, but the way some people told it, there was nothing that he could not do. He moved closer, and Gimli stepped in, grasping the assassin's chin and moving his head upwards, forcing him to meet Aragorn's gaze. "I know it," Aragorn said quietly.

For a moment, choices warred in the assassin's eyes, but then Aragorn saw it, the moment that he decided to admit the truth. "Yes," he declared. "Yes!" He raised his head still further, pulling it out of Gimli's grip. On either side of him, the captains drove down hard, keeping him down on his knees. "I am from Umbar! I am from Umbar, and we are coming for you! We will have our revenge!"

"But you swore oaths," Aragorn said.

"Oaths to Umbar!" shouted the man. "I have only ever been loyal to Umbar."

"It is no crime to be loyal to an enemy," Aragorn said, "even to an enemy who has sent no declaration of war. Justice should be tempered with mercy. Many men of the east and the south came suing for peace, and were allowed to return safely home. It is no crime-"

"No war had been declared when you led the forces of Gondor against the fleet in Umbar!" the man shouted. "You came in under the shadow of night and you burnt it. You killed the Captain of the Quays yourself, or so they say. If I sought to commit a crime tonight, then it is a crime that you have already committed."

"It is not a crime to strike down an enemy captain in time of war," Aragorn said, "and Umbar had already declared war by attacking the coastal villages and enslaving their people. It is not a crime to strike down an enemy captain in time of war, but the man who does so must surely know that if he is taken in the attempt, his life will be forfeit." He stepped even closer. "But oath-breaking is a crime, in Umbar as well as in Gondor."

"I swore-"

"You swore oaths to Gondor," Aragorn said, making his voice as soft and cold as snow. "You swore them, or you would not be here. You swore them, meaning to break them. Justice should be tempered with mercy, but oath-breakers can expect no mercy, and there is not a kingdom or fiefdom in Middle Earth where they would receive it."

"I-!" the assassin started to protest, but then he stopped, and swallowed hard. He looked almost dignified as he knelt on the ground, clearly a prisoner, surrounded by a ring of merciless faces, and beyond them, only the dark. "I expected as much," he said, "if I failed."

It would be a swift death; Aragorn would grant him that much mercy, at least. He was not Isildur, to curse oath-breakers with thousands of years of restless death. But before that, there was one more question to ask; one more truth to ascertain, although he was sure that it would only be answered with lies.

He crouched down, and turned his gaze upon the man, and held it there until the man raised his eyes and met his gaze. "Are there others?" Aragorn asked quietly, too quietly for anyone but the nearest to hear. "Others have been taken. Are you the last?"

"There are others!" the man declared. "Many others. Countless others. We have sworn your hollow oaths and we hide ourselves amongst you, and we will never stop coming against you. We will never stop."

Reflected flames flickered in his eyes. Aragorn nodded, and stood up, and turned to walk away. "It will be done at dawn," he told the captains. "We will grant him the rest of the night to ready himself for it in whatever way seems fitting to him."

Éomer fell into step beside him as he headed out of the circle of light. "He was lying?"

"Yes," Aragorn said. "He believes himself to be the last."

"That's good," said Éomer. Earlier, he had almost fallen asleep himself, due not to a sleeping draught, but to simple exhaustion, but now he seemed fully awake. "Is it over at last?"

"Over?" Aragorn shook his head. "We have a war to fight." And there would be deaths in it, of course. There always were.

"Yes," said Éomer, with a quick bark of laughter, "but war I know. War is a game that I understand."

 _Yes,_ thought Aragorn, _and it is a game that I hoped we would seldom have to play again, yet here we are._


	23. Black Sails

**Chapter twenty-three: Black Sails**

From _Swords Against Umbar,_ by Galion Whitesmith, F.A. 1700

When the black sails of Umbar were sighted in the distance, beacons bore the news across Belfalas and the southern fiefs. Some who saw those beacons hid in fear, because these were the lands that had suffered greatly at the hands of the Corsairs in the past, and they had thought never to see those sails again. Most, though, stood and prepared to defend their homes.

They were not unprepared. It was then several weeks since King Elessar had first suspected that an attack from Umbar was imminent. At the same time, however, he knew that he was unable to attend to it in person, at least for a while. He considered it advisable to lull the lords of Umbar into thinking that their ruse was undetected, in the hope that this would tempt them into rash action against an enemy that they considered weak and unprepared.

However, the southern fiefs were not unprepared. Throughout the king's absence, Lord Faramir had been busy, labouring secretly in Minas Tirith with maps and orders. By the time those first sails were sighted, Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth had spent weeks preparing the defences of his princedom. Other southern lords worked equally hard. Most of this action went largely unreported at the time. Most of our sources for the events of this summer come from Minas Tirith, where the people had their own troubles: troubles which blinded them to the preparations taking place in the south.

Granted, the need for secrecy hampered Imrahil and the others a little, but not by much. They could not muster openly, but they made no secret that a muster was being prepared. In case they were being observed by spies from Umbar, they put it about that they were preparing a second army to go into the Brown Lands after the king. After all, when Elessar had marched, he had taken with him an army that was small even by the standards of the day. Ostensibly this was because of the need for haste. In reality, of course, it was done to spare as many men as possible for the defence of the south.

So when Umbar attacked, the south was far from being undefended. True, Elessar was not yet there in person, but it is easy to over-estimate the effect of this. In our popular histories and our novels, King Elessar is sometimes given the credit for all the military victories of his day. He is painted as an expert swordsman and a tactical genius whose mere presence guaranteed victory. As with so many of the accepted truths of popular history, reality is far more complex. Gondor, we must remember, had won many victories in the years before the coming of the king. Prince Imrahil and the Lord Steward were gifted commanders in their own right, respected by all who knew them, and many of the lords of the south had led their own levies through a dreadful war.

Elessar was indeed the only person who could have brought about the happy outcome in the Brown Lands. Nobody else could have negotiated peace with Samir. Nobody else would have even thought to try. However, when Umbar launched its attack on the south, the absence of the king was not the crippling blow to the forces of Gondor that some have tried to paint it.

More crippling, of course, was the fact that the attack was in itself a feint. Even without the king, the southern fiefs were well defended, but the southern fiefs were not, in fact, the target of the main attack. That would come elsewhere, where few indeed were in place to defend it.

* * *

By the second morning, their callused hands were raw despite their long years at sea. Before their journey was halfway done, the wind faded, and they had to use oars as well as their slackening sail. They reached home not long before dawn, barely an hour earlier than Remdir had hoped to arrive before he had seen the black sails in the south. Only an hour, but it could be that an hour made all the difference.

Even that early, they had been spotted, and their families were down on the quayside, waiting for them. "Daddy!" Remdir heard, and followed the sound of the voice to pick out his wife from the cluster of people.

He hugged his wife, wrapping his stinging hands around her. "Black sails," he whispered, his mouth against her ear. "Corsairs are coming."

"Yes," she said, and he realised suddenly that she was trembling. "The warning came two days ago: not that they'd been seen, but that they were expected. You were out on the ocean by then, of course, and we couldn't… I couldn't…" She pushed him away, holding him at arm's length and gazing intensely at him, as if to reassure herself that he was really home. "Oh, Remdir…" She laughed, but he knew her too well, and knew that she was crying really. "You come with this news, but most of all, I feel relief. Is it wrong of me?"

"No, not wrong at all." Remdir pulled her close again and kissed her. He knew how much she worried when he was out at sea, even at the best of times. "So they were expected, then?" He gave a wry laugh, louder than was needed. Clinging to her mother's skirts, the little one was looking anxiously up at them. "And here was I thinking that my name would be told in stories as the first to bring the news! Would you like to hear your daddy's name in stories, my darling?"

The little one nodded gravely, but his wife sucked in a sharp breath. "Don't…" He frowned, puzzled, then thought he understood. Apart from the king and great heroes, people were usually only named in stories because they were dead. Every year, on the anniversary of Sauron's fall, every village solemnly sang the names of their dead, and gathered together to remember them.

"So preparations are afoot, then," Remdir said. "What's happening? I should-"

"Unload your fish," his wife said firmly.

Remdir shook his head. "But the Corsairs…"

"Unload your fish," she said. "If you let them rot in their nets, then we'll go hungry and have nothing to trade." But if the Corsairs were coming, hunger would be the least of their worries, and who would be free to trade with them? "If you let them rot," she said, "then you are handing them the first victory of this war without even putting up a fight."

He opened his mouth to protest, but couldn't do so. She was right, he thought. He was a sea fisherman, and he was free to ply his trade because of the peace that the king had brought them. If he was called to join the defence of his village, he would do so. If he was summoned to a levy elsewhere, he would go. If the black sails were sighted from the quayside, he would prepare to meet them. But until that happened, he would continue to earn the livelihood that peace had brought him. Even if it was for the last time, he would bring in his catch.

* * *

From _The Tale of Éomer Éadig,_ by Elred son of Elwine, F.A. 430

The command came from Éomer King, and Elfhelm heard it. Haste was needed, and things did not yet seem so dark as to need the full muster. Seldom in all the long years of the Riddermark has the full muster been called, and seldom may it be called in the years to come!

A thousand men did Elfhelm gather from the Eastfold, and when they were mustered, he drank the stirrup cup and bade them ride forth. Farewells were said, but there was little weeping. Songs were sung and spears were sharpened, and the thunder of hooves was heard once more in the Eastfold, ripe with crops and bright with the laughter of children.

Their riding took them not through the blasted wastes of war, and not through a land held by enemies. No, they rode through Gondor, through the fields of friends. Care must be taken when riding through the lands of a friend. In the lands of an enemy, crops can be trampled and livestock seized for eating. In the lands of a friend, an army rides as a guest. They cannot take that which has not been offered, but Gondor offered, and offered well. They brought welcome and the fruits of their fields. They marvelled to see the Riders, so tall on their proud horses, and clapped their hands together, and said, "The Horse Lords are riding into the east!"

Their welcome slowed the riding, as Éomer King himself had known it would. Fourteen days did it take from the time that Éomer King sent word, to the arrival of his men by the shores of the Anduin. There they found themselves expected, and a welcome had been prepared for them. There they stopped and rested, and awaited the command of their king.

On the morning of their second day there, a messenger came from Éomer King. He was on the far side of the river, approaching fast. The enemy he had summoned them to fight was not in the east after all, but in the south! "Are we to ride south, to the relief of Mundburg?" the Riders wondered, but the answer came nay. Ferries were to ship them across the Anduin to the island, and from the island to the eastern shores. There they would form up again and meet their king.

And from there they would ride. From there they would ride once more to war.

* * *

"I feel I have done this too many times already," Éomer said, as they stood on the bank of the river, shaded by its trees.

"Not so often," Aragorn said with a smile, "and this time, it is but a short parting."

"And not into danger," Éomer said, returning his smile. He would never forget the moment when Aragorn had announced his intention to leave them to seek the Paths of the Dead. It had seemed to be a decision that would lead only to death, and it had filled all who had heard it with dread and despair. When Aragorn had revealed that he intended to leave the army and seek out Samir alone, it had seemed scarcely less dreadful than his departure for the Paths of the Dead, although Éomer had understood the need for it. But this time… He shook his head. "Not into danger," he said, "but still going alone."

"Yes," Aragorn said. "I spent too many years as a Ranger, it seems. When there is something that I need to do, it seems that I do not think in terms of retinues and a company of guards." His mouth quirked into a smile, and he chuckled. "It is a bad habit of mine, or so I am told."

Éomer had fought his own battle with the restriction of freedom that lay upon a king. Again and again, he had forced himself to stay behind with the army, when his heart longed to ride into danger with his men. But, "Yes," he said, remembering that last departure, "perhaps it is."

But if Aragorn had not headed behind enemy lines to seek out Samir, where would they be now? Locked in battle with Samir and his men. Forced to send fresh armies into the Brown Lands to stem the Easterlings' advance, all the while knowing that Umbar was sweeping up from the south.

"But I will not be alone," Aragorn said, gesturing towards the boat that was approaching from the far shore. "Look! Someone has kindly provided two doughty soldiers of Gondor to be my escort, and the boatman himself is armed, I would wager."

But could they be trusted? The agent of Umbar who had tried to kill Aragorn two nights before had been a soldier of Gondor, his loyalty proved by oaths and by years of good service. What if these soldiers were enemies in disguise? They would wait until the boat was in the middle of the river, far from any watchers, and then they would strike. Or perhaps they were loyal, but an enemy was watching them even now, and would run along the river bank to lie in wait in the reeds, an arrow nocked and ready to strike.

 _No,_ he chided himself. _No._ There was always risk. He remembered a story that his mother had told him: the tale of a silly woman who was so terrified that there might be wolves outside that she never went out and enjoyed the starlit beauty of the night. Years ago, against the advice of some of his men, Éomer had trusted three travellers who had accosted him at a time of looming war. Caution and fear could have ruled him, but instead he had taken a chance on trust and on hope.

If they let the fear of spies and traitors paralyze them, then they were lost. The time for hiding in the darkness was over. A thousand men stood ready for him to lead them into battle. That was Éomer's part, and this was Aragorn's. As with the mission to treat with Samir, it was not something that anyone else could do.

"We will meet again soon," Aragorn said. "Within days, perhaps, depending on…"

"Yes," said Éomer, because it was not something that he liked to speak of overmuch. "Depending on _that_."

* * *

From _Swords Against Umbar,_ by Galion Whitesmith, F.A. 1700

Elendil and his sons came from the sea, and the strength of Númenor had rested always in her ships. However, during the Kin Strife, the fleet was lost to Gondor. Castamir the Usurper was Lord of Ships, and after his death, his sons defected to Umbar, and the bulk of the fleet went with them. For the rest of the Third Age, Gondor maintained just enough ships to protect the coast from the worst ravages of the Corsairs, but the focus on their military strategy moved increasingly to the land.

All that changed when the Fourth Age dawned. "Thorongil," as you will remember, had been a great captain by sea as well as on land. When he claimed the kingship, he came, like Elendil, from the sea. From the start, he was determined to rebuild the great fleets of Gondor. In time, ships would regularly ply the coastal routes between Arnor and Gondor, or travel far to the south in search of allies and trade.

But all that was for the future. At the start of his reign, Elessar had few ships apart from the Corsair ships that he had seized at Pelargir. These were refitted, and turned from dark-sailed galleys to fair sailing ships crewed by free men. The shipyards of Pelargir were rebuilt, but his own raid on Umbar had taught him the dangers of concentrating a fleet in one location, vulnerable to attack. As well as Pelargir, he established new yards at several key places on the river between the bridges of Osgiliath and the sea.

Because the shipbuilding was scattered in this way, it is possible that the lords of Umbar under-estimated the naval strength of Gondor. Perhaps they knew that Gondor had ships, but believed that she lacked skilled men to sail them, since for years, the only people of Gondor they had known had been the farmers and fisherfolk they had taken as slaves. Elessar encouraged both misconceptions, it must be said.

By Cair Andros, Elessar took a small boat down the river. Éomer's men were brought across the river by ferry boats, for the great bridges there would not be built for twenty years. But all the way from Osgiliath to the sea, the ships of Gondor were stirring. The fleet was but a shadow of what it would one day become. Some ships were unfinished, and some crews were half-trained. But when the black sails of Umbar were sighted, they sailed, some to hold themselves ready at Pelargir, and others to engage the Corsairs who were heading for the southern fiefs. As Elessar travelled down the river and Éomer rode through Ithilien, the first blows of the war were already being exchanged in the waters of the south.

* * *

From _The Summer of Twelve,_ by Merileth of Belfalas, F.A. 713

There were no rumours this time. For weeks, Minas Tirith had been ruled by rumour, but during those last few days, the rumours had died down. We now know, of course, that this was because the agents of Umbar who had been stirring those rumours were killed or taken. At the time, the people only knew that they felt more hopeful, more settled, despite the battles that they feared were being fought in the east.

When the news broke, it came not as a rumour, but as a formal announcement. Trumpets sounded and proclamations were made. The whole truth was revealed. The king had discovered that the Easterlings weren't the true threat, after all, and were innocent of most of the crimes they had charged with. A treaty was likely to be made, but before there could be talk of treaties, there was a fresh war to fight. Umbar was coming! Umbar had been behind everything, even the attempt on the king's life that had started it all!

No rumours, did I say? The announcement prompted a veritable flurry of talk. Everyone had an opinion, and gathered in inns and street corners to tell it to anyone who could listen. A few disbelieved the story, until letters started to come in from people with the army, confirming that they were indeed heading home. Some still distrusted the Easterlings, muttering that there was no smoke without fire. More, though, suddenly found themselves feeling strong sympathy with the Easterlings, wrongly accused of crimes they hadn't committed. Some were horrified by the narrowness of the escape, and tormented themselves with dreams of Gondor and the Easterlings tearing themselves apart in a dreadful battle while Umbar laughed. When they confessed it, they were often rebuked by their friends. "The king discovered the truth in time," they said. "Of course he did."

But when it came to the matter of Umbar, all were united. Umbar had paid a vile trick on the people of Gondor, and Umbar had to be punished. The Easterlings were an unknown foe, just one of the many who had come against Gondor in the War, but Umbar was a familiar horror returned. From Osgiliath to Dol Amroth, everyone knew the dread of those black sails.

After the attack on the king, thousands had volunteered to avenge it. Now they came forward again in their thousands, in their tens of thousands, to protect their homes. The king and his army were still far away. Who could plug the gap until their return? Lord Faramir would lead them, of course, but who would form his army? Why, _they_ would, the people of Gondor!

* * *

The city seethed with fury against Umbar, but no matter how hard he listened, Seregon heard no mention of an attack on the Steward. The tall lord of Umbar never returned. He had taken the token and vanished from sight.

 _I can't bear it,_ Seregon found himself thinking. _I can't bear the waiting._

Had he made his attempt, but failed in it? Was he implicating Seregon even now? He dreaded every moment that he would be dragged away. At night, he lay sleepless, listening for marching feet. But when he did sleep, his dreams were different. In his dreams, the marching feet belonged to the lords of Umbar, who came to him stern faced, demanding that he fulfil his oath.

 _I should do something,_ he thought. What if he was the only one left? Twelve years he had lost to this mission. It had to mean something; it _had_ to. Nothing so useless as merely killing the hobbit. _I was right not to try that,_ he thought, wiping his clammy hands against his sides. Something decisive. Something huge.

But he reported for duty as normal, guarded his gate, and went with his comrades to the tavern for drinks. His captain confided that he was close to the end of his latest term of service, and he was thinking of retiring rather than renewing his oaths for another seven years. His captain seldom smiled, but he smiled at Seregon, and clapped him on the shoulder. "I will recommend you to take over my captaincy," he said, "although I can't make any promises beyond that."

 _My captain?_ he thought, remembering how the proud lord of Umbar had corrected him on that. He was not called Seregon, either. That was merely a name he had assumed while waiting for his time to come.

And now that time had come. He laughed bitterly, and laughed again when people turned to look at him. Everywhere there was talk of war. Perhaps Umbar would win, and instead of two proud masters, he would have a whole army of them, striding through the ruins that they would make of Minas Tirith. _They won't thank me for the last twelve years,_ he thought, but could he really be as petty as that? Could that be the heart of his discontent?

 _I should do something,_ he thought. _Something to hasten that victory._

But he remained at his post, and he did what his captain asked of him. When he slept, the lords of Umbar stalked through his dreams, and the towers of Minas Tirith fell before them, the wreck of something truly beautiful.

* * *

Somewhere in the building, the dogs were barking delightedly. At least, Pippin thought they were barking with delight, but he knew little of dogs. "Should I get Little Faramir a dog?" he asked. Dogs were rare in the Shire, because they had a regrettable habit of growing almost as big as their owners, and knocking them flying when they leapt up to say hello. "A _small_ dog," he added.

"Why not?" said Merry, who was, after all, one of the few hobbits to own ponies of his own.

Pippin sighed, and for a moment, he could picture Diamond and Little Faramir so clearly, so vividly, that it was as if they were here alongside him. But they were so far away. It was months since he had seen them. He had left them, not because war had called him, but because when he was at home, quiet domesticity wasn't enough for him. _But now that I'm away…_ he thought.

"Is it wrong…?" he found himself saying. Merry looked at him quizzically, and he had no choice but to carry on. No secrets from Merry, of course. "Is it wrong to wonder what we're doing here?" he said. "To wonder what would happen if we just upped and went home tomorrow?"

Merry stopped walking. It was late evening, and they were returning from a quick trip to the kitchen to beg an extra supper. "I felt that during the War," he said, "especially when you went off with Gandalf, and then Strider and the others rode away. But at the same time, I didn't want to go, not when my friends were in such danger. I hoped that…"

"That one day, I would be useful," Pippin finished for him. "And that if I couldn't, at least…"

"At least I would be there to see what happened to them," Merry said. "At least I would know."

A door opened ahead of them, and a man came through it. Pippin barely glanced at him at first, then almost dropped his plate in surprise. Merry was less lucky, and a pile of bread rolls tumbled to the floor. The man crouched down to pick them up, and offered them up to them, smiling.

"Strider!" Pippin cried. "I thought you were far away. But now they say that Umbar's coming against us again. Did you know? Is that why you're back? How long are you here for?"

"It is a fleeting visit," Aragorn said. He looked very tired, Pippin thought, and there were lines of tension around his eyes, just as there had been on the awful journey from Weathertop. He looked older than Pippin remembered him, but perhaps he was thinking of the Strider he had first met nearly fifteen years ago. "I came down the river by boat. I had business in the city, but before dawn, I must depart again."

"Without getting any sleep?" Merry asked.

"Not without supper, surely?" Pippin said, offering him his platter.

Aragorn held up a hand in polite refusal. He smiled as he did so, but the lines of tension remained. "Sadly, I have no time to spend with friends, even such friends as you," he said. "But much has happened since last we met, and much of it is good, or less bad than I feared."

"But there's war!" Merry said. "That's what Faramir told us. Not with the Easterlings, it seems, but with Umbar."

"Yes," said Aragorn, "and it is against Umbar that I go, but…" It was not like him to trail away, to fail to finish a sentence. Even when he was playing Strider the Ranger, his words always sounded well considered and composed. It was probably because he was so tired, Pippin thought. Then Aragorn smiled, and clapped his hand on their shoulders, first Merry and then Pippin. "I believe that the worst is over, my friends, even though we ride to war."

They watched him leave, and stood there in the hallway long after he had gone, watching the closed door. "I saw him looking a bit like that before," Merry said at last. "It was worse then, of course, because Sauron had the other one, but, still…"

 _The palantír!_ Pippin thought, as bread and cheese rained from his platter to the tiles. He remembered joking about it, once. Just before they had parted from Aragorn and the others after the War, he had said how much he wished he had a Seeing Stone so he could watch all the friends he had to leave behind. The flippant comment had been necessary. The memory of the palantír would have remained too terrible without it.

"But he says the worst is over," Merry said cheerily. "We have to believe him, don't we?"

It was not said as a question, but Pippin nodded anyway, and then nodded again.

* * *

Just as it always was, the image of the burning hands of Denethor was slow to dissipate. Not for the first time, Aragorn wondered what he was doing, keeping the Anor Stone in Gondor, rather than adhering to his original plan, which was to use the Orthanc Stone and let the Anor Stone remain unused. The Stone of Orthanc could be used with little effort, now that there was no Sauron to challenge him for mastery, but the Anor Stone…

He let out a breath. No help for it. The choice had been made, and this was not the time to change it.

He had only hours for this. He had slipped silently into the Harlond by boat, and from there into the city unseen. He had been away for little more than two weeks, but what secrets from those two weeks could be revealed by the palantír? It had been enough to bring him home, just for these few snatched hours, but the palantír had told him little that he had not already suspected. It confirmed that he was right in _this_ supposition, and a little astray in _that_. It confirmed a fear. It told him where his armies needed to go, and where swift messengers needed to ride.

It did not tell him if other agents of Umbar still walked abroad in Gondor, wearing the masks of friends. It was silent on Samir. In the palantír, the Brown Lands were barren and empty, occupied only by crows.

But although it was the palantír that had brought him here, the duties of the night were not yet finished. He blinked, trying to drive away the image of Denethor's hands. As he did so, his waking eyes saw the hand of a gaoler turning a key. "Follow me, my lord," he heard, and he did what the warder said, following the footsteps, following the hand that held the flickering torch. Down, he went. Down.

 _Fire,_ he thought. _Fire and hands and darkness._

The prisoner was hunched in the corner of his cell. On the point of being captured, he had tried to take his own life. For a few days, the wound had turned bad, but it was now healing. Now he was trying to kill himself by refusing food and drink. Faramir had failed to get any answers from him, Aragorn knew. Faramir was troubled by his failure. That, too, he knew.

"You come from Umbar," Aragorn said. "There is no point in denying it. The truth is known."

"You!" spat the prisoner. "I know who you are!"

"Yes." Aragorn moved close to the bars, then crouched down beside them. He nodded to the warder to bring the torch close, illuminating the prisoner's drawn face. He was foolish to refuse water. When a man was parched, his strength of will faded. All too quickly, he lost all sight of what was real and what was not, and he would say anything and do anything if he thought it would quench his thirst. "And I know who you are," he said, although he did not know the man's name, merely the sort of person he was. He had travelled through Umbar in his time. He knew how to recognise one of her proud lords.

"I won't talk," said the prisoner. "I told the Steward. I won't talk."

Aragorn leant closer. "You are no fool," he said. "You must know that the captains wanted you tortured, but the Lord Steward resisted them. But you would not have talked under torture. Would you?" he said, turning his full gaze upon the man. It was less than a hour since he had looked in the palantír, and the memory still remained. Until it faded, he saw more keenly and more deeply than he usually did.

The prisoner's eyes were hectic, darting from side to side. "I won't talk. I will never talk. You will never know…"

"The names of the others?" Aragorn said. "Because there were others, were there not? One is dead, killed while attempting to murder the Lord Steward a few days after you were taken. Another rode with the army, and he, too, is dead, having failed in his task. And the others…?"

The prisoner was silent. _I will not talk!_ his eyes said. _No matter what you do to me, and no matter how you ask, you will get no more from me._ Aragorn remained where he was, just watching him. Reflected in the prisoner's eyes, he saw burning hands and marching armies. Then, behind them, he caught the faintest flicker of despair: the despair of a man who was alone and captured, hearing news of the ruin of all his hopes. It was there just for a moment, and then it was covered. "I will never talk!" the prisoner said.

And he never would, Aragorn thought, unless thirst made him delirious. There was no use in staying any longer. That flicker of despair was the only hint he would be given. It suggested that no other agents remained, or if they did, they were ones that this lord deemed worthless.

Aragorn stood up, and turned away, letting the warder light his way up the stairs. Outside, he returned to the courtyard, and paused for a while, wondering how much time he could spare to spend with Arwen alone. Oh, how he craved her advice, her embrace, her comfort! She knew he was here, of course, but theirs had been but a brief greeting, before he had climbed the steps that led to the palantír, alone.

It was there that Faramir found him, walking slowly with his wooden crutches. "Faramir," Aragorn said. He wanted to embrace him, but was afraid of hurting him. _You have done well,_ he wanted to say, but Faramir was no child, to be patronised by such a reassurance. If reassurance was needed, he would give it, but not like that.

Faramir gave a wry smile. "We have been occupied, as you can see."

"Indeed you have," Aragorn said. Faramir had been a pillar of strength during his absence, he knew. As well as wrestling with the problem of traitors in the city, he had single-handedly coordinated the preparations for war in the southern fiefs. By necessity, most of that had been carried out in secret. They had jointly agreed that they could bring very few lords into their confidence. The few that they trusted, like Imrahil, were already out in the field. Aragorn had been able to confide in Éomer, Legolas and Gimli, but Faramir had opted to keep everybody, even the hobbits, in the dark about the true state of affairs, remembering how his father had been able to uncover secrets from Pippin's chatter. Aragorn could only hope that Faramir had been able to confide in Éowyn. He could only hope that he had been allowed at least some hours a day when he could lay aside the mask. All men had doubts, even kings and their stewards.

"And more is to come, it seems," Faramir said.

Aragorn nodded. He wished that Faramir could return to Emyn Arnen and heal from his wounds in his own home, but Gondor needed a ruler, and in the absence of the king and an adult heir, it had to be the Steward. As far as Aragorn was concerned, Arwen could rule in her own right, but the people of Gondor were not yet ready for such a step. They loved and respected her, but they put her on a pedestal. If anything, they loved and respected Faramir even more, but he had once been one of their own, they were not afraid to approach him for rulings and judgements, and they accepted his word as if it came from Aragorn himself.

"How long are you here?" Faramir asked.

"Barely hours now," Aragorn had to reply. Time enough to talk, but before they came to matters of war and policy, he needed to talk about something that might seem to Faramir to be the least important thing of all. "The man who attacked you showed a token," he said. "What has happened to the guard who let him pass?"

"He is confined in the guard house," Faramir said, "because he failed in his watch. That is the law."

"Yes," Aragorn agreed. "That is the law." He looked up at the stars, and remembered the night in which he had approached Samir's camp. "Pardon him," he said. "The judgement is yours to make, but I would urge you to let him resume his duty without blame. No," he said, when Faramir made as if to protest. "I used the same ruse myself, and had I not done so, we might be facing a war on two fronts, instead of just one. We have lessons to learn from this. There is too much deference in Gondor, and our soldiers are afraid of listening to their own judgement, but he should not be the one to pay the price. Let it be known that he is blameless. It is easy to make mistakes."

"Yes," Faramir agreed. "Yes, it is."

"Indeed it is," Aragorn agreed, remembering his own mistakes of the last few weeks. He smiled wryly. "But you have made none, or so they tell me. The enemy agents have been captured-"

"I could not make him talk," Faramir said, perhaps the only man of Gondor who would ever interrupt his king; Aragorn wished at times that they were more. "I saw a hint for a moment - a hint of despair that he could not conceal - but-"

"I saw that, too," Aragorn said, "but nothing more. He revealed nothing more. Some men never do."

"We will have to remain watchful in the city," Faramir said, "but our attentions must turn outwards now, to the war." He shook his head. "I find it a relief to have it out in the open. I am not fond of keeping secrets."

While secrets came naturally to Aragorn, it seemed, because of the circumstances of his life. He had spent a lifetime hiding his true identity. Hiding his true intentions from his lords and captains had felt no different, but perhaps it should have done so. Perhaps he, too, had lessons to learn from this. "But the time for secrets is nearly over," he said.

"And the rest of it?" Faramir asked. "You've looked into the palantír. This I know." They seldom talked about it. It was one of the few occasions when honesty between them was soured by the memory of Denethor. Faramir knew that Aragorn used the Anor Stone, but chose not to talk about it, and Aragorn respected that choice. "Is it nearly over, too?"

"I… do not know," Aragorn said. "I hope so. They come against us in force, but we are not unprepared. Much was staked on the gamble in the east, but it proved correct, or so I hope. I hope…" He might have finished it, might have found a more polished answer, but this was Faramir, and Faramir deserved to see the truth of him, without masks. "I hope," he finished, just that.


	24. The Game

**Chapter twenty-four: The Game**

From _Swords Against Umbar,_ by Galion Whitesmith, F.A. 1700

To the modern eye, what is surprising about the war is how swift it was. Granted, the machinations of Umbar had been many months, even years, in the making. However, from the attempt on Elessar's life to the first deaths of the war, it was barely three weeks. In that time, you must remember, Elessar had mustered an army; taken it into the Brown Lands, which was then a trackless wasteland; negotiated a peace settlement; returned to Minas Tirith, and then left it again.

It is easy for us to look at our broad, smooth roads and think that things were different in the past. Nowadays, of course, our stage-coaches can take us in comfort from Osgiliath to Fornost in less than a fortnight. Boromir, son of the Denethor the Last, took a hundred and ten days to travel less far. However, when it comes to warfare, things were actually swifter then. Needless to say, armies cannot travel by stage-coach, so even today, their movement is limited by the distance a man can march in a day. Gear was lighter then, and the men-at-arms had recently fought a dreadful war, and were accustomed to hardship and long marches: longer than any captain would demand from their men today.

Nowadays, if a war calls for more men that are provided by our standing army, new soldiers must be recruited and trained, and uniforms and weapons found for them. All this takes time. In Elessar's time, however, things were different. For thousands of years, you must remember, Gondor had lived with the constant menace of Sauron and his allies. Even the humblest farm labourer knew how to fight. The southern fiefs, in particular, operated on a feudal system, by which land was held in exchange for military service. From great lords to humble tenant farmers, everyone with land was expected to provide a body of armed men, whether large or small, when their own lord asked them to.

As a result, Elessar and his lords could mobilise an army far faster than we could produce one now. In addition, armies were smaller then than they are now, which led to swift movement and swift battles.

However, even the swiftest army in the world is useless unless the intelligence is right.

* * *

Abrazîr had seldom landed like this. He had captained a ship for many years, but a wound had kept him from sailing against Gondor, so of all the veteran captains, he was one of the few who had survived the terror of the restless dead. He would avenge them now, ah yes!

Most landings came with swords and screaming. In his long years of working the coasts, he had taken countless slaves. They always struggled. It was more fun that way. More fun for the lads, anyway. Abrazîr was past taking enjoyment in such things. Terror was a weapon, and he loved it no more than he loved the knife at his belt.

Even so, it felt wrong to land like this in Gondor, so quiet and so unopposed. Other captains, younger captains, were even now ravaging the southern fiefs of Gondor. _Just like the old times!_ he thought, but most of these were young men who didn't remember the good old days. There would be resistance, of course, because their black sails had been spotted coming in towards the coast. Most of the fighting men of Gondor had been tricked into marching north, too far away to cause any trouble. Most of the rest would even now be rushing towards their populated coastal areas, thrown into a panic by the sight of the black sails.

But Abrazîr and the others had broken away from the fleet long before it had been sighted. While the younger captains ravaged the lands on the inhabited side of the river, Abrazîr and a handful of ships had sailed quietly along the uninhabited coast, flying not black sails but sails the colour of sand. There were no lights on this coastline, and no slaves to be taken. No horns sounded across the water, announcing that they had been seen. Swiftly, silently, they had slipped along the narrowest and most hidden of the many mouths of the Anduin. Then had come the most perilous part of the journey, when they had sailed up the river at night, without any lights to show them the way. There were lights on the northern shore - the lights of enemies who could not be allowed to see them - but there were no lights on the southern shore, and nothing to keep the ships from running aground.

And now here they were, as close to the cities of Gondor as they dared. They turned into the broad mouth of the Poros, and there they made anchor. There, at last, did they land the troops that they carried. The slaves, too, they unchained and sent out with spears in their hands. They were not slaves from Gondor, of course, but slaves from the far south, who had cause to hate Gondor. "You will get your freedom if you fight well," Abrazîr told them. It might even be true, but it depended on what mood he was in when they returned. He needed men to row him home, after all.

Throughout it all, there was nobody to see them. There was nobody to resist them.

* * *

All across Gondor, the messengers were riding. As he rode out from Minas Tirith, Aragorn was the only one to ride slowly, lost in thought. All the pieces were on the board now, and it was now too late for many of them to be moved. The army from the Brown Lands would return when it could, but could not be hurried. The levies from Belfalas and Lebennin were defending their own coastlines, and that was where they had to remain. It was too late to move them, even if he wanted to.

But they were not pieces on a gaming board, of course, but living men who would die if he was wrong. Some would die anyway, because that was the way of war. Some would…

No, there was no time to think about that. Like any captain, a king had to do whatever was needed to bring about the best result. He could not lose himself in bitter regret for each lost life. He could not risk the lives of a hundred men in the hope of saving one. People died in war. The role of a captain was to ensure that their deaths were never wasted; that they died in the service of a good cause, and as few and as seldom as possible.

Did the lords of Umbar consider the value of each life? They were greatly weakened since the fall of Sauron; this he knew. From the start, their strategy had been based on their lack of numbers. That was why they had tried to weaken Gondor by sending an army to the north. That was why they attacked the southern fiefs even now, while on the far side of the river, their army marched up the old road from the south. It was a long march, through terrain ill-equipped to supply an army, and their numbers were few. They wanted to march into Ithilien and take Osgiliath. That, surely, was their goal. They were wagering everything on the road into Ithilien being undefended.

But if it _was_ defended… He rode on, wondering. It was almost dawn, and the masts and warehouses of the Harlond were taking shape out of the gloom. If the road to Ithilien should prove to be defended, what plans did the lords of Umbar have for their army then?

They played it like a game, he thought, but with little concern for their pieces. The strategy behind it was clever. They had been cunning, launching feint after feint, trying to compensate for the fact that they were outnumbered and fighting far from home. But now they were throwing everything at Gondor in one last attack, and if it failed, they would be facing an empty game board, with no pieces left upon it.

But how to ensure that it failed? All across Gondor, men were taking up their positions, but where should Aragorn himself go? He had discussed it with Faramir long into the night; there had been no time, after all, to spend with Arwen. He could head to the crossroads to join the Rohirrim and the returning horsemen from the Brown Lands, but Éomer was already in command there. He could sail down to Pelargir, and take command of the southern levies, but the lords of those fiefs knew well how to defend their own lands and would order their own battles well, without his interference.

Or he could take a ship from the Harlond and cross the river, heading into the uninhabited lands between Mordor and the Anduin. There would be armies there, and soon. Companies had been raised from Minas Tirith and Osgiliath, ready to head south, but he had already sent the commands that would take them across the river instead. There were no bridges south of Osgiliath, but smaller forces could be transported across the river from Pelargir and the lands around.

That was where the battle would be; increasingly he realised that.

* * *

From _A History of Lebennin,_ by Maethel of Pelargir, F.A. 380

The black sails of the Corsairs haunted too many nightmares. The merest rumour of them caused dread. That was the Corsairs' weakness, because it meant that the people of Lebennin were prepared to die rather than let the black ships return to their shores.

In the last decades of the Third Age, the coastal regions had been badly hit by Corsair slavers. During the War of the Ring, the ships disgorged great armies of men from Umbar and Harad, who ravaged the lovely plains of Lebennin. "Never again!" the people cried, when peace allowed them to return to their ravaged homes. They rebuilt what they could, and tore down and replaced those buildings that were beyond repair. They made their fields fair again, and they watched the coast. Always they watched the coast, determined never to be driven from their homes again.

It was to Belfalas that the news first came, but from Belfalas, it spread fast to Lebennin. The men of Lebennin are loyal and true, and they answered their lord's call. Swift ships came out of the Anduin, and prepared to board the ships of the Corsairs. It was a man of Lebennin who claimed the glory of making the first kill of the war, although the folk of Belfalas claim that glory for themselves.

Fierce was the fighting along the coast of Lebennin. Our bold mariners took two ships on the first day, landing grappling hooks on their decks, and boarding them, taking them after bitter fighting. One was wrecked, and its wreckage was left on the rocks that had claimed it. For many years, it stayed there, as the waves and the weather slowly rotted it away. Two more ships managed to land in a secluded cove, but the network of lookouts and watch towers proved true, and tidings of their approach were carried just in time. The Corsairs disembarked, but found themselves surrounded. Twelve brave men of Lebennin were slain in that battle, but of the Corsairs, not a single one returned to their black-sailed ships.

Others Corsair ships stayed anchored, but landed boat-loads of warriors under the cover of darkness, who headed inland and started raiding. Most were captured within days or weeks, but some remained at large for months. Some were never captured, or so it was said. Whenever there was an unexplained death or sudden violence on the road, rumour blamed these Last Corsairs who had never been found. This continued for many decades, far longer than any true survivors could have lived. A hundred years later, the children of Lebennin liked to scare each other with tales of the Last Corsairs: phantom robbers who hid under beds or lurked on remote roads in the winter. Songs are sung about them even now.

But all that was for the future, then. At the time, all that the people of Lebennin knew was that they were under attack, and that the future of their homes - nay, the future of Gondor itself - depended on their courage and their skill at arms. And they fought bravely, and they fought hard.

Other battles were fought elsewhere in Gondor, of course, but nowhere are there men more bold and true than in fair Lebennin by the sea.

* * *

His hands were callused from the scythe and the hoe. Tuidor was a farmer, or so he liked to call himself. In truth, he was but a smallholder, farming barely thirty acres near the coast. He liked to think of the land as his own, although he held it from his lord. He had bled for it in the past, defending it from raiders who came from the sea. He had bled for his lord, too, turning out to fight for him when he was called.

Not that he needed much calling. His lord had only ever called him when Belfalas was in need. Tuidor would have fought then, and willingly, "But I wish I could stay here," he had said to his wife. "Stay here and defend our own acres. Defend you."

"You _are_ defending me," she had said as she kissed him goodbye. "Go where our lord sends you. Even if you end up fighting a hundred miles away, I know you'll be fighting to defend these fields." She had smiled and kissed him again. "To defend me."

And so here he was, just one of the thousand farmers and husbandmen who owed military service to their lord. His callused hands knew how to hold a spear, for he had trained with it once a week, as had been the law for so many years. Beyond them, hidden by the hills, the Corsair ships approached across the bay. There were rumours of raiding parties abroad in the hills. People said that they had been fighting somewhere, but he didn't know where. Nobody seemed to know anything for certain.

No, he thought. No, that wasn't true. Many things were certain. They were defending their homes. No enemy would march through Belfalas, of that they were sure! They were ready, and if they had to die, they would die. Just fourteen years ago, Belfalas had been ravaged by the Corsairs. Never again!

His callused hands knew how to wield a spear, but today no spears were called for. Today his only weapon was the tool he used every day. Commanded by his lord, he used a spade, digging defences in case the enemy tried to take the inland road.

 _They will not do so!_ he swore. As he dug, he pictured his acres at home: the great oak that he hadn't the heart to fell; the white bell flowers of bindweed, twining in the hedges; the joyful bounding of young lambs; his wife's smile.

 _I fight for all this!_ he thought. If every man stayed at home and fought on his own acres, then one by one, every one of them would fall. But they had marched away. To defend their homes, they had marched away from them. Together they stood, because their oaths bound them. Together they stood, because together they could keep the enemy from entering Belfalas. By leaving their homes, they protected them.

 _I hope,_ he thought. _I hope._

* * *

Calennor had been just sixteen years old when the Corsairs had stolen him from his home. He'd been foolish, thinking himself immortal. As he'd scrambled alone up the cliffs in search of eggs, he had slipped and fallen. By chance, he had missed the rocks and landed on one of the few patches of sand between them. And it was there, half-stunned, that he had been found by the Corsairs and taken as a slave.

For four years, he had rowed in their galleys. The first thing he had known of his liberation was the screaming. On the decks above, the Corsairs screamed as the Dead fell upon them. Calennor and his fellow slaves had known little of that, though. They hadn't seen the king in person, just one of his kinsmen, as tall and as welcome as a hero of old. They were free, he had told them. They were free, and their chains would be broken, but if they would consent to row for a few days longer…?

Calennor had rowed. He had rowed as he had never rowed before, and then the wind had changed and the sails had lent aid to their efforts. But everyone in Gondor knew that tale, although the names of the rowers would go forever unremembered. Everyone in Gondor knew what had happened after the ships had reached Minas Tirith.

He might have been expected to leave the sea after that. He had rowed for four years as a slave, and now he was free. What could he do? Farm, perhaps? Return to his village by the sea? He'd done that, of course, and found his father dead. His mother had embraced him, laughing and crying at the same time, and his brothers had wanted him to join them in making nets.

He had chosen the river and the sea. His mother and his brothers couldn't understand it. Four years a galley slave, and he had chosen to row as a free man. There were no whips now, and no chains, although sea captains were stern, strong men, and there was little softness, even when the crews were free. But he had come to love the water. He couldn't sleep without the feel of it.

"Pull!" came the command. "Pull! Pull!"

You couldn't see anything, down here with the oars. But he knew that the Corsairs were bearing down on them. Sometimes he heard the clatter of grappling hooks landing on the deck, and the screams of men who had been hit by them. He heard shouted commands as the ropes were severed, and the commands to send grappling hooks of their own. He knew that there would be a battle very soon. He had to win. They had to.

* * *

From _Waiting for News: the Uncertainty of War,_ by Ornith of Dol Amroth, F.A. 1013

As a great historian once wrote, hindsight makes seers of us all. It is easy for us to forget what it was like for those at the time, who lacked our knowledge of what happened next. The war against Umbar was short, and when we look back at it now, it might seem to us that the result was never in doubt.

At the time, however, there was far less certainty. It took barely three days for news of battles to reach Minas Tirith, and as we look back from our perspective of long centuries later, three days seems like no time at all. But think how long those three days must have felt to someone awaiting the news of a son! Think how long they felt to a farmer from the coastal levies, who didn't know if his farm was still standing! Think how long they felt to a captain or even to a king, who had to decide where best to send his troops!

The uncertainty went deeper even than that, of course. Focus narrows during a war. A rower sees only his own oar. A fisherman desperately defending his home sees nothing but his own narrow stretch of shore. A soldier sees the only the men who are trying to kill him; sees them as swords, as faces, as flashes of movement, devoid of any sense of the larger pattern. A woman who has sent her son to war waits not for news of the victory of Gondor, but for news of the survival of her son. The smallest of things can remind her of her worry. As people line the walls, waiting for news, she might be found on her knees in the kitchen, clutching the shrivelled petal from a long-forgotten posy that her son once brought her. For her, the petal becomes the symbol of all those weeks of waiting and uncertainty.

Things stop during time of war, too. Normal life continues, as it always does, but people postpone making plans for the future. The reality of the war casts its shadow over everything, preventing them from sparing much thought for what might come after it. "I will do it after the war is over," they tell themselves. "I'll wait and see what happens with the war, and then I'll decide."

"After the war," they said, but at least they could see their way to an 'after.' The War of the Ring was so huge and terrible, that by the end of it, many people in Gondor had accepted that there could never be a good ending. There was uncertainty during the summer of '12, and there was fear, but there was always hope.

* * *

He would wait until the war was over, Seregon decided. He would wait and see who won. He would turn the decision over to a throw of the dice. If Umbar won…

 _I don't want Umbar to win._

And there it was, his answer. He tried to deny it. He tried to drive it away. Again and again, he repeated the vows he had made so long ago, and he reminded himself how much he hated Gondor and everything it stood for.

 _I don't want Umbar to win._

And at length, he ran out of ways to deny it. When he thought of Umbar victorious, all he could see were the faces of those proud lords who had considered him worthless, although he had sacrificed so many years to their cause. When he thought of Gondor victorious, he saw the hobbit, Pippin, talking so warmly about the homeland that he loved. He remembered what the hobbit had said, almost every word.

 _I don't want…_ No, there was no need to say it again. It was true. All that was left was the decide what to do about it.

He thought about it for the length of a sleepless night. What he wanted most of all, he decided, was to have the last twelve years again, and this time do it right. He would swear his oaths to Gondor again, and this time he would mean them. When his comrades cheered at the sight of the king, he would cheer wholeheartedly along with them. He would let himself have friends. Perhaps he would marry, even have a child. He had spent the last twelve years pushing people away, thinking of them as his enemies. He had seen the years as a sacrifice, but he could have made them a blessing.

But it was too late for that, of course. The years were gone. _But they_ were _a sacrifice!_ he wanted to protest. Maybe he had been wrong to think of it that way, but that was how it was. Nothing could change that. For twelve years, he had endured this empty life of his, and it didn't matter that he had been wrong to do so. He was committed now. He had to make those empty years mean something, or…

"No." This time he said it out loud, and he sat up in bed, pulling his knees up to his chest. What did it matter? He had wasted twelve years. Best not waste another day, then.

What he wanted to do was have those years back, but that could never happen. Next best was to stay exactly where he was. From this very moment, regardless of who won the war, he would be a model soldier of Gondor. He would make friends. He would live his life richly and well. He would become captain of the Sixth Gate, and maybe rise even higher after that. He would…

By now he was up and dressing, preparing to face the day. No, that, too, was out of the question. Even if Umbar lost, the lords would survive, and they would seek vengeance. They knew how to find him, and he would never be free from the fear that today would be the day that they found him. They would hold him to his oaths. They would demand such things!

And even if they did not, there would be the constant fear that the king and the Steward would discover what he had done. He would never feel safe. He would never be able to relax.

He looked at himself in the polished sheet of metal that served as a looking glass. The face that looked back at him was older than he liked to think of himself. _You should give yourself up,_ he told his reflection. That was the honourable thing to do. That was what a true man of Gondor would do. He would confess that he had sworn false oaths to Gondor, while serving Umbar in his heart. He would confess to murdering his comrade and almost killing the Bloodhound. He would confess to stealing the token. He would confess to all…

But then he would die for it. The king was merciful, but his mercy would not extend to an oath-breaker. It could not.

"I don't want to die," he whispered, and it seemed that he was a coward after all, because it was only when he said it that he knew what he had to do.

* * *

A messenger was waiting for them at the Crossroads. Éomer took the letter, scanned it quickly, and nodded once. "Let me guess," said Gimli. "He's decided not to come back and join us. He's gone off somewhere by himself."

Éomer shook his head, although Gimli was not entirely wrong, of course. "He's gone down river, but not alone. He's commanded as many men as possible to cross the river to join him."

"So the enemy marches up the southern road, then?" Gimli asked.

"They do," Éomer says. "From the Crossings of Poros, they will come up into Ithilien, but that is not all. They have also landed a small force by the mouth of the Poros, and they think themselves unseen. Perhaps they think to sneak into Ithilien and take territory, even if their main army should be defeated. Or perhaps they intend to outflank any army of Gondor that marches south in response."

"So what are we to do?" Gimli asked. "What does the king command?"

There had been no commands in Aragorn's letter, of course. To Legolas and Gimli, as well as to Éomer and Faramir, he would give no commands. "He would like us to stop them, of course."

"Oh," said Gimli, patting the axe that hung at his horse's side. "Easy."

"Indeed." Éomer laughed. A levy was heading out of Osgiliath to defend the Crossroads if they failed. Under Captain Beregond, the levies of Emyn Arnen would defend their own hills and the road that passed it. Several thousand men were coming over from the ports between Minas Tirith and Pelargir. Several days behind them all, the army from the Brown Lands was moving south. The southern fiefs were under attack, that too Éomer knew. There would be no help from those parts, "but we have enough," he said out loud. "A thousand Riders of the Riddermark! They think to sneak up on Gondor unseen, do they? Well, they have never met the Sons of Eorl on our proud horses! They think we are a hundred miles away, embroiled in a war in the north. Let them learn their mistake! They seek to outflank us. Let them be outflanked! Let them face us!"

He had not meant it as a speech, but through it all, his voice had been rising. All those near him cheered as he finished, and cried out his name.

 _Let them face us!_ he thought, and he drew his sword from its scabbard, and held it aloft, gleaming in the morning sun. Once more, the Riders of the Riddermark were going to war in Gondor, but this time, the sun was shining and the shadow of Mordor was gone. _Let them fear us!_ he thought, and he laughed aloud, and gave the command for his Riders to follow him into the south.

* * *

Note: I intend to post the final two chapters back-to-back tomorrow morning (UK time)


	25. Betwixt and Between

**Chapter twenty-five: Betwixt and Between**

From _The Mind of the Past: A Social History of Gondor, F.A. 12 to 62,_ by Ioriston of Isengard, F.A. 358

My tale is one of people, not wars. I know little of swords, only of those who wield them. I know little of strategy, the preserve of captains and kings. Let others, who love such things, fill pages with their accounts of battles and troop movements. Let them describe how Elessar ordered his army, and how _this_ flank moved forward, and _that_ flank stood firm. Let the singers of the Rohirrim tell us how Éomer ordered his famous cavalry charge. Let the poets of Umbar, the scattered few who remain, list the names of those many thousands who never came home again.

For my part, I see war as an unpleasant interlude in the tale of our glorious Age. I am a historian, and I cannot ignore it, but let us move swiftly past it, and carry Gondor back to peace.

Barely two dozen Corsair ships attacked the coast of Lebennin and Belfalas, and some were hardly ships at all, merely fishing boats packed full of armed men. Most were captured or sunk with little loss to the defenders on the shore. Along the whole length of the coast, two hundred and ninety-six men died, many of those sailors on a single ship that ran onto rocks while attempting to capture a Corsair ship.

By the time the army from Umbar passed the Crossings of the Poros, they were exhausted from their long march. It was a far smaller force than Umbar could have mustered just twenty years before, and all along, the lords of Umbar knew that their only hope lay in surprise and misdirection. Halfway between the Poros and Emyn Arnen, King Elessar awaited them, along with five thousand men. The men of Umbar rushed in to engage with them, and it could have been a fierce battle, were it not for King Éomer and his Rohirrim. Having previously fallen upon a strike force from Umbar who had been making their way by stealth into Ithilien, Éomer led his men in a wide loop, and came upon the army of Umbar from the rear. Caught between Elessar and Éomer, the army of Umbar crumbled.

Many were slain. Many more tried to flee, and were allowed to do so, for they were not in themselves evil men, just men who had been given no choice but to follow their lords to war. As for the lords, they fled on swift horses as soon as the outcome of the battle became clear. Some were taken, but some had chosen not to risk themselves at all, but had stayed behind in tall ships far behind the line of battle, or stayed behind in Umbar itself. There they remained, and brooded, and plotted their revenge. It would be another dozen years before the threat of Umbar was finally eliminated, and more would die before that day came.

But for now, let this be the end of it. For some, there was grieving. Some had ruins to rebuild, and some had wounds to heal. Men marched home who had never seen battle before. Some had forged new friendships with comrades met over a campfire. There were weddings, too, as the fear of death in battle led men and women to realise that they never wanted to be parted again.

There was peace, and my tale is the tale of Gondor at peace. Life resumed its normal course, with all the joys and hopes and fears that daily life entails. A thousand tiny wars of the heart are fought every day. Those are my tale, not this.

The war was swift, and the war was won. Let it end there, and let my tale begin.

* * *

All through the Citadel, people were waiting. Faramir had unrolled a map of southern Gondor, and marked the armies with tokens, here, here and here. Battle would have been joined yesterday, or maybe today. If it didn't happen until tomorrow, that meant that something had gone wrong and the forces of Umbar had evaded the net.

"How fast can a messenger gallop?" Pippin wondered out loud. "Or will he come by boat? How long before we know?"

"We had an eagle last time," Merry said. "I don't expect we'll have one this time, though."

They were leaning against the battlements, standing on tiptoe just to see over. The city was invisible below them unless they scrambled up the wall and sat on the top. Pippin had tried that once, but the sheer drop below him had made him feel a bit funny. It was better to stand with a wall between you and the drop, even if it meant that you couldn't look down. They could see outwards, though. They could see the road that led to Osgiliath and the road that came from the harbour. If messengers came, they would see them.

"It would be useful if we could, though," Pippin mused. "Imagine it! A nice, friendly eagle that we could send out any time we had an urgent message."

"A _singing_ eagle," Merry said. "It was a _singing_ eagle."

"Or any sort of bird." Pippin looked up, and watched the swallows flying, darting this way and that in search of insects. "Remember the thrush in Bilbo's stories?"

Merry said nothing, and seemed to be lost in sad thought. He'd been left behind the last time, too, of course. Pippin had gone away with the army, but Merry had stayed behind. All he had been able to do was stare out at the endless darkness in the East, and wonder when the end would come. Or maybe the end had already come, but they just hadn't known it yet.

Pippin pushed himself away from the wall. "Shall we go down into the city?" It was too quiet here in the Citadel. He had already asked Arwen if she knew what happening across the river, but she had shaken her head sadly, and told him no. He wanted to ask her again. Again and again, he wanted to pester her: did she know now? Had anything changed? Whenever a door opened, he whirled round to see if they had missed the messenger somehow, and here was Faramir come to break the bad news.

"Yes." Merry nodded gratefully. "Let's do that."

Would the people in the city even know that battle had probably already been joined? The malicious rumours seemed to have stopped. Nobody outside the Citadel knew about the attack on Faramir, and that was a good thing, because it showed that there were no more agents of Umbar left to spread panic and uncertainty. Down in the city, Merry and Pippin might be slower to hear any news, but at least there would be distractions while they waited. There would be bustle and chatter; food and drink and smiles.

They left the Citadel and descended into the sixth level. "I wonder if Seregon has any news," Pippin wondered. Merry hadn't met Seregon yet, and it might be fun to go out for a bite to eat and a quick pint, just the three of them. But Seregon wasn't at the gate, and there was no sign of him loitering outside the guardhouse. _Maybe later,_ Pippin thought, but then he heard someone speak Seregon's name, and he turned round, expecting to see him there, after all.

"…still no trace of him," he heard them say. "It's been three days now. I think…"

"What?" Pippin hurried up to them. "You're talking about Seregon? He's gone somewhere?"

There were four of them outside the guardhouse. Three of them fell silent, clearly reluctant to answer him. "You were in the tavern with him last week," said the fourth. "Were you friends, lord?"

"I drank with him a few times," Pippin said. He knew hobbits who would claim a lifelong friendship on no more acquaintance than that. "Has he disappeared?"

The guardsman told him the truth of it. Seregon hadn't been seen for three days. As under-captain, he had a private room, and when he failed to report for duty, they had opened his door and found it empty. His uniform was hanging up, and all his weapons were laid out on the neatly-made bed. Most of his other clothes had gone from the wardrobe, along with his pack.

Pippin went cold all over. They'd thought it was over. No more agents of Umbar left in the city. No more spies. No more murders. A guard from the sixth gate had been murdered a few weeks ago, hadn't he, on the day the army had marched? This was another one, another death. It wasn't over. It wasn't over at all.

"The captain isn't saying much about it," the guardsman said, "but he thinks… I mean, we all think that he left of his own accord. It's not like last time, like it was with Hastor. I mean, he's taken his _clothes_. But why would he leave his sword? I think…"

One of his comrades cleared his throat pointedly. Another muttered something about duties to attend to, places to go. "Can you blame them?" Merry said, when they were through the sixth gate, and well on their way to the fifth. "Imagine how you'd feel if a Took had disappeared, and some great big Man came blundering up, asking questions."

Pippin thought about it for a while, and nodded. "And he called me 'lord,'" he said, rather sadly. It was always a little strange in Gondor. Some people saw their size and lack of sophistication, and treated them like children. Others knew that they were friends with the king, and treated them like great lords, heroes from legend. It was why Gondor would never feel quite like home. Wherever he went in Gondor, he could never be just one of the crowd.

"But why would he leave?" he wondered. He remembered the last evening he had spent with Seregon. Pippin had been quite distracted, distressed by the attack on Faramir, and had prattled quite shamelessly about the Shire. In truth, he hadn't paid that much attention to Seregon himself. Had Seregon seemed worried? Unhappy? _Yes_ , he thought now, looking back at that night. _Perhaps_. He remembered how tightly he had gripped his tankard, his knuckles white.

"I hope…" he said, but by then they were passing through another gate, and they got caught up in the bustle of people going to market. He caught snatches of their conversation: "Umbar," they said, and, "on the coast." But others were busy gossiping about all the usual things: shopping and food and friends. Many of them stared at Merry and Pippin, although most at least tried to be discreet about it.

"Do you know anything, lords?" a woman cried, grabbing Pippin by the sleeve. "Do you have any news from across the river?"

Pippin had to shake his head. He was gentle about it, but he had to pull his arm away. _This is how Arwen felt,_ he thought, _when I asked her._ Throughout the War of the Ring, he had felt so little and ignorant, surrounded by people who knew more of the world than him. Arriving home afterwards, he was one of the Travellers, full of tales of great deeds and distant places, the fount of all knowledge about the world. Now he was… _what?_ he thought. Somewhere betwixt and between, caught between Gondor and the Shire.

"But I _am_ glad we came," he found himself saying, "even though we haven't been much help. This is our world, too. If things _have_ ended badly, imagine what we'd have felt like if we'd only heard about it months later, in a letter."

"It hasn't," said Merry with desperate confidence. "It hasn't."

They walked on, down through the gates, all the way to the lowest circle of the city. "I wonder how Captain Daerion is," Pippin said, because that at least was something useful that they'd done. They'd saved a man's life, or helped to save it, anyway. "Should we try to find him, do you think, or go to that nice tavern near the gate?"

Merry didn't answer. He was gazing along a side street. Pippin wondered what he was looking at, then realised that this was where the assassin had hidden himself on that dreadful day that had started everything. That was the high window, and that, there, was the cobbled road where he'd died.

Perhaps he wasn't in the mood for an inn, after all. "Let's look for Captain Daerion," Pippin said. A few more steps, and they saw him, on duty at the Great Gate.

Pippin began to hurry forward, but as he did so, a horseman appeared at the Gate. He was red-cheeked and windswept, and his clothes were grey with dust. Captain Daerion went forward to speak to him, and the horseman bent in the saddle to give his news in a low voice. Pippin was still moving forward, slowing with every step. "…tell Lord Faramir before it is spoken abroad," he heard, "but it is news of victory, yes."

The captain nodded once, and stepped back to allow the messenger to pass. Pippin turned to look at Merry, but Merry was a dozen paces behind him, and hadn't heard.

He read the truth in Pippin's face, though. He always did.

* * *

Once the decision had been made, Samir's army moved swiftly. "Smaller horses than ours," Cenred said, "but fast ones. Good ones. But they don't ride them the right way. Look at the length of their stirrups and the way they hold their reins!"

Mablung checked to see how he was holding his own reins, and looked to see if Cenred was holding his differently. He knew little of horses, but he was glad to be mounted. For the first two days, they had travelled with the baggage train, confined to a wain. During the day, the horsemen and chariots had galloped on ahead, while the wains had trundled up slowly in the rear, catching up after dark. On the third day, they had been allowed to ride horses of their own. Mablung took it to mean that they were now too far away from the forces of Gondor for anyone to be afraid of a rescue attempt. Gondor was forgotten now, unimportant. All that mattered was the enemy that awaited the clans at home.

"It might be that you men of Rohan are the ones who are doing wrong." Lasdir said it casually, not even looking at Cenred, but Mablung was riding on the other side of him, and caught his smile.

"Wrong?" Cenred cried. "Wrong? We…" He trailed away, and gave a laugh. "Different, then, not wrong. They hold them _differently_. I expect…" He said it stiffly, as if the words were hard to say. "I expect they think the way we ride our horses is wrong, too." He turned to Lasdir. "Less wrong than _your_ way, though."

Lasdir looked at him serenely, the picture of an unruffled elf. When his horse had been brought to him, he had both amazed and horrified the clansmen by removing the saddle and harness, and now he appeared to command the horse without a word. As for himself, Mablung knew little of horses, and had no opinion about stirrups or reins, but he was pleased to hear Cenred talking like this to Lasdir, and even more pleased to see Lasdir's smile.

"As far as I'm concerned, you're all strange," he said. "Saddle or no saddle, long stirrups or short, they're still _horses_. I have little time for horses."

Lasdir turned towards him, arching one elegant brow, but Mablung still remembered that smile of his. Cenred huffed and blustered, but there was a smile beneath his outrage, too. _Ah, yes,_ Mablung thought. _I think we might emerge from this as friends._ A man of Gondor, a man of Rohan and an elf, finding friendship amongst enemies in the east? It sounded like a story, but what did that matter? This was his life. The friendship was what mattered, and smiles where you had expected to find none.

He let his horse carry him onwards, while Lasdir and Cenred tried to provoke him with tales of the foolishness of Rangers of Gondor who insisted on walking everywhere. Around them and ahead of them, the armies of the clans were moving eastward. A quarter of the army had gone on ahead, he knew, travelling as swiftly and lightly as they could, without being slowed by the baggage. Were they home yet? Had they encountered their enemies?

All too swiftly, the sun neared the western horizon. Another day gone. The king had once drawn him a map in the dust, but Mablung hadn't fully comprehended just how far Samir had brought his armies when he had brought them into the west. Their homeland was many days away, even when riding fast, and that was only the very nearest of the lands that the people had Gondor had called "the East." Thousands of leagues of unknown land lay to the east of them, far beyond even the Sea of Rhûn.

"We rode against them as enemies," Cenred said. "Now they're riding against enemies of their own. I should wish for their defeat."

"Yes," Mablung agreed. If Samir was defeated, then he would never again come against Gondor. The outposts would be avenged. Even if he wanted to renege on his agreement with the king, he would be unable to. Let him know what it was like to return home from the wilds, and find only a smoking ruin and the bodies of women and children scattered like autumn leaves!

"The enemy of an enemy is a friend, they say," said Lasdir.

"Yes." Cenred nodded. "But we have seldom found it so.

"No." Lasdir gave a fleeting smile, and then turned grave again, seemingly lost in memories.

"But I find myself hoping that they get back in time, even so," Cenred said. "I find myself hoping that they win."

Behind them, in the west, the sun was sinking. He should be spending every moment wondering what was happening in Gondor. Was the army back in Ithilien by now? Had Umbar made its move? Were the bridges of Osgiliath even now under attack by the black ships of Umbar? _Will I ever see Gondor again?_ he wondered. _And if I do, how changed will it be? How ruined will it be by war?_

Far to the west, and out of reach. Forgotten. Unimportant. Mablung and the others were barely guarded now, and Mablung was the only man of Gondor within several hundred of miles.

"Yes," he confessed. "So do I."

If they did, he thought, it would be the start of better things. It would prove to Samir that the king had told the truth, and even if he chose not to admit it, he would know in his heart of hearts that his people owed everything to the warning that the king had brought. A few weeks ago, Mablung would have taken no comfort in that, but already he was beginning to understand these people amongst whom he was pledged to spend the next year. Some of his lords might push for renewed war against Gondor, but he thought that Samir would honour the truce.

If he won, of course. If he returned home in time to keep his enemies from destroying everything that his people owned. Everything rested on that now.

"Yes," he said again. "So do I."

* * *

The food was quite lovely, but Pippin kept forgetting to enjoy it. He would eat a few mouthfuls of cake, put it down on the plate, and then find himself sitting there many minutes later, the plate forgotten in his hand. _I wonder…_ he kept on thinking. _Could it be…?_

Everyone else seemed happy, though. That was good, of course, but it also made him reluctant to talk about his concerns. Faramir had had a difficult time of it these last few weeks. Pippin hadn't realised it at the time, of course, but Faramir had been planning the defences of the whole of southern Gondor, forced by necessity to do it all alone. Faramir didn't like keeping secrets, Pippin thought; he was like a hobbit in that. How good it was to see him smiling! He wasn't the only one, either. The children were laughing, chasing each other around the gardens. Pippin had gone down into the city several times since the news of victory had come, and everywhere he went, people were beaming.

"Have you tried the lemon cake?" Struggling to balance a glass of wine and a plate of cake, Merry sat down beside him.

Pippin nodded. There was a crumb of it on a fold of his shirt, he noticed. He brushed it away. In a nearby tree, a pair of sparrows watched him with interest, doubtless trying to remember where the crumb had landed. Then Faramir came limping over to them, and the birds flew away.

"Do you need my shoulder this time?" Pippin asked, but he stayed where he was, his hand raised to shield his eyes from the sun. Faramir no longer needed crutches, but it obviously still pained him to put too much weight on his foot.

Faramir smiled. "I think I can manage," he said, sitting down carefully. Of course, Pippin thought, the ground was further away when you were as tall as a Man. That was why they littered their gardens with chairs and benches. They wore shoes, too, so didn't know the pleasure of feeling fresh grass against your feet.

"When will Strider and the others get home again, do you know?" Merry asked.

"It will be some days yet," Faramir said, "if not longer. They are still beyond the river."

Pippin took another bite of the cake. "I wonder if lemons would grow in the Shire," he said, "or if it's too far north for them." He busied himself with licking his fingers clean.

When he finished, he found that Faramir was looking at him searchingly. He wasn't saying anything. He didn't need to. He was like Gandalf that way, in that when he looked at you _just so,_ you found yourself wanting to confess all your secrets. "I keep on thinking about Seregon," Pippin confessed. "He's a guard at the sixth gate. He's…"

"Disappeared," said Faramir. "I know."

Pippin nodded. Of course he did. Faramir always knew everything. "At first, I was afraid that it was Umbar at work, but the other guards think he chose to leave. He didn't leave a note, though, or tell anyone. Why would he go?"

Faramir said nothing, but just sat there, inviting Pippin to carry on. No, he wasn't like Gandalf at all, Pippin thought. Although Gandalf was usually kind, there were times when you were terrified to admit what you'd done. _Fool of a Took!_ he had shouted, and that was before the thing with the palantír, and the things that had resulted from that. But once you'd confessed things, you knew that Gandalf would put things right. So maybe Faramir _was_ like Gandalf, after all, because it was the same with him.

"I thought he might have run away to join the army across the river," Pippin said. "That's where the fighting is, after all, and the glory, while he was stuck in the city, guarding the same gate day in, day out."

"Yes," Faramir said, and Pippin remembered that he, too, had been stuck in the city, and might have wanted to be off fighting elsewhere. Faramir didn't _like_ war, but he loved Gondor and he was a great captain, and if war had to happen, then he probably wanted to be part of it.

Pippin almost apologised, then decided that this would only make things worse. He took another bite of cake, the last one left. "But if so, why would he leave his sword behind?" He shook his head. "And then I started to remember things. The questions he asked. Again and again, he kept on asking me the same thing. The way he was so quick to befriend me. The way he looked. He was so tense at times, almost angry."

Merry was looking at him intently. Eldarion and Elboron ran past, one of them quiet, the other shrieking with joy. A butterfly landed on Arwen's skirts, spread around her on the grass. She and Éowyn were talking together, their words too quiet to be heard.

"And there was that guardsman who was killed," Pippin said. "He was stationed at the sixth gate, too."

"Yes," said Faramir. He shifted position, wincing. "There is more, too. The man who attacked me used a token to gain entry to the Citadel. It was stolen from its previous holder. Few knew that he had it, but earlier that day, the previous holder had shown it to the guards on duty at the sixth gate."

"Oh." Pippin swallowed hard. His mouth felt very dry. Could it be true? When the idea had first occurred to him, he had recoiled from it guiltily. It couldn't be true! Not a guard of Minas Tirith! Not Seregon! Not a man who could almost have been a friend. But if it was true, then Seregon had only sought him out because…

He shook his head. "Do you really think so?"

"It has occurred to me, yes," said Faramir.

"Then why…?" Pippin shook his head from side by side. "He's deserted so he can go back to Umbar?"

"Perhaps," Faramir said.

"Then you're searching for him, surely?" Pippin asked. "He knows your passwords."

"We are," said Faramir, "and the passwords have been changed."

"Or maybe he's gone to ground in the city." Pippin clenched his hand into a fist to stop it shaking. It couldn't be true! He hadn't wanted to say it out loud, but once he'd started, he'd been so sure that Faramir would tell him a dozen reasons why he was wrong. "It's all going to start all over again."

Faramir shook his head. "If he is still in Minas Tirith, he will be found. Everyone in the City Watch knows him, and if I choose to share my suspicions with their captains, they will find him. They will consider it their duty to find him."

Pippin chewed his lip. A horn sounded down below: Seregon's comrades changing their watch. "But if I'm wrong… It's only a suspicion. And it shouldn't…" He laughed, but there was no mirth in it. "I prattled quite shamelessly that last night. I kept babbling on about how lovely the Shire was, and how terrible it was that there were people out there who wanted to ruin everything with war. I said… I said that everyone probably thinks that his own homeland is the best, and he said yes, yes they did, but he didn't sound as if he meant it. He was deeply troubled that night, I think, but I was too busy babbling, and didn't really pay much attention."

Nobody said anything for a while. Pippin put his plate down beside him, and the sparrows returned, watching him hopefully. Picking up the plate, Pippin scattered the crumbs outwards, and first one and then the other bird hopped down to eat them.

"It was things like this that I was talking about," Pippin said. "Gardens and growing things. Good food and the freedom to enjoy it with friends. All those things that Umbar wanted to destroy."

"Maybe you changed his mind," Merry said, "if you chattered about it as much as you say. Maybe you made him realise that he was wrong; that Umbar was wrong. Maybe that's why he's left: because he didn't want to do it any more."

Pippin laughed. He knew that the happy chatter of a hobbit could cheer people up when they were anxious, but to change an enemy's heart and turn him away from evil deeds…? Oh no, he thought. That was for heroes of stories, not for hobbits like him.

* * *

Kabil had not been chosen to go with the swift force of horsemen and chariots. His lord was dead and he had nobody to command him. He had been taken prisoner, and he had no right to push himself forward and beg the right to play a warrior's part. Some of his fellow prisoners felt differently, and were desperate to erase their shame with bold deeds. Others, like him, hung back, expecting to be shamed. At first, he had been reluctant to mingle even with them. _They_ hadn't told a terrible truth to their lord of lords.

But then the hostage had said what he had said. Was it true? Could it be true? Could he believe it? Instead of feeling shame, should he feel pride? He had told an unpalatable truth, but because he had told it, Samir were racing home to thwart a cunning attack by their old enemies. If he hadn't… If he hadn't…

No, it was too soon to believe it. It was just too soon. They were still too far away, and they still didn't know if Samir would arrive in time. They didn't know if anything could be salvaged, or if they'd arrive home to find burning halls and desecrated barrows. "No fault of yours," the hostage might have said, that grey-eyed man of Gondor. He was a prisoner, too, but there was no shame in _his_ captivity. He had chosen it willingly, a sacrifice for his people. He had given up his freedom in the hope that it would bring peace between their peoples.

Again and again Kabil found himself drawn to them. Again and again, after the army had made camp, he found his steps taking him towards their compound. Tonight they were laughing, the pale-haired man lounging backwards, resting on his elbows, and the elf sitting cross-legged on the grass. The dark-haired man from Gondor saw Kabil coming, and walked across to meet him.

"Why are they laughing?" Kabil asked. It wasn't what he had meant to say. Most of all, he wanted to talk about what the hostage had said the other day. If he heard it enough times, perhaps it would be true.

"Cenred said Lasdir laughs too much," the man of Gondor said. "Says not proper elf. Says elves are… sad." He shook his head. "Not right word. Not sad, but…" He pulled a solemn face, his hands pressed against his cheeks, dragging them down.

"Solemn?" Kabil suggested. "Grave?"

"Grave. Yes." The hostage nodded. "Lasdir says some elves grave sometimes but some elves..." He finished it with a word that Kabil didn't know.

Kabil repeated it questioningly. The hostage nodded, then gave an exaggerated laugh and smiled around him at everything he could see. "Merry?" Kabil suggested.

"Yes," said the hostage. "Merry. And he is merry always."

Kabil repeated that strange word, the word for 'merry' in the tongue of Gondor.

"Yes," said the hostage, and then said another word, which Kabil presumed was 'yes' in his language.

"Teach me," Kabil found himself saying. "Teach me your tongue."

The hostage was silent for a while, and Kabil wondered if he had offended him. But then the man smiled. It was a strange smile, Kabil thought. It occurred to him that he was not the only person wrestling with fears and regrets. These three people were far from their homes, and although they weren't bound, they were not free. What would inspire a man to volunteer to become a hostage? What would drive a man to such an act?

He didn't think he could do it. Perhaps he was just a weak coward, after all. But, _No,_ he told himself. Perhaps the hostage was right. Perhaps he had shown courage when he had admitted that Hasad was wrong; when he had admitted that their enemies from Gondor had been kind. Others were undefeated in war, but when commanded to tell the truth, Kabil had done so, without considering the cost to himself. When the tale of this summer was sung, perhaps his name would be sung as one of the bold.

If the hostage was right. If Kabil could let himself believe it.

If they arrived back in time. If their homes were saved.

"Yes," the hostage said, saying it so late that for a moment, Kabil couldn't remember what the question had been. "Yes," he said again, this time saying it in his own tongue. He pressed his hand to his breast, and gave a slight bow. "Mablung," he said.

He was saying his name, Kabil realised. Yes, he decided. If they arrived home in time to avert disaster, then he would learn how to feel proud of his part in the affair.

He bent his head in a bow of his own. "Kabil," he said. "My name is Kabil. Hasad was my lord, but Hasad is dead. Now I am myself. I am Kabil."

"Kabil," Mablung said, and clasped him by the hand.

* * *

Seregon was over a week away from Minas Tirith now. He had started off on foot, constantly looking over his shoulder to see if he was being pursued. He wanted to hire a horse, but thought it would be too obvious a step. Instead, he walked until his feet were blistered, heading far away from the road. It was only then that he dared to approach farms and houses and ask if they had a horse that he could buy. It took six attempts, but at length he was able to buy one.

Money was no difficulty. He had served as a guard for twelve years, with no wife and no children, and no ties. He had never bothered to acquire many possessions, because he had known all along that this life was a temporary one, and "Seregon" was just a part that he was playing, and not real.

Wrong, he knew now. He had been wrong, but there was no going back. You could never go back.

So instead, he rode forward. He could not stay in Minas Tirith. He had no desire to go to Umbar. Instead he would go north. He would shed the name of "Seregon," just as he had shed his old name, but this time, he would inhabit his new name wholeheartedly.

He knew that he was a coward, oh yes! He had committed one murder, and come close to committing a second. By stealing the token, he could have caused immeasurable damage to Gondor itself. Such things could not be forgotten, and should not be forgiven, but…

He shook his head. He was riding through Anórien, heading towards Rohan, with the mountains rising to his left. At sunset and sunrise, they were so beautiful that sometimes he found himself weeping. But strangely, what haunted him most often were the words of the hobbit, Peregrin. _Why do so many people like to destroy lovely things?_ The lords of Umbar, in their spite, wanted to do just that. Seregon, too, had wanted it. For years, he had wanted it, but now…

No, he thought. Not any more. His crimes couldn't be forgiven, but he could atone for them. There were many wild places in the south of Arnor, and although the roads were safe, foul creatures still roamed not far from them. He would find a village in need of fighting men, and offer his services. He would labour long and hard to tame the wilderness. Perhaps he would marry; it wasn't too late. If he had children, let Umbar be a distant name to them, and nothing more.

No, there was no going back, but why would he want to?

* * *

From _The Song of Samir,_ by Mesud son of Murat, F.A. 704

Samir was a man with vision. Alone of his people, he could see that if the lords continued with their constant feuding, the clans would be swept away like sand. The best way to unite a divided people is to offer them an enemy, and Samir believed that Gondor was a true enemy indeed. It was a hard battle, but he prevailed, and took them with him far further to the west than any of them had ever gone.

But it was there that he showed his true mettle. Had he led his armies to victory against Gondor, we would sing of him now as a great leader, the first to unite the clans. But Samir was greater than that. For when it mattered most, he was brave enough to take a chance on peace. He was bold enough to stand up and say, "No. I was wrong. Gondor is not the threat that I told you it was." He was courageous enough to turn his back and walk away.

Had he not done so, nobody would be left alive to sing his story. Taking a chance on peace, he headed home as fast as he could. Even so, he was almost too late. Thinking that they would be unopposed, the tribes from the east came sweeping down on the halls and homes that Samir and his army had left behind them. Only women and boys defended them; only the old and the sick. Even so, they did not lie down and let the enemy trample over them, not without a fight. Many enemies did they slay, but many of them, too, were slain. Many halls were burnt and many fields lay barren and salted for many years to come.

But then, just as it seemed as if the enemy would take possession of all the lands that rightly belonged to the clans, Samir returned, glorious in his chariot. Much had already fallen, but more remained. By coming when he did, Samir came in time to avert the end of everything we had ever known.

The war was fierce, and many were the songs of sorrow that were sung when it was over, but we prevailed. The tribes were routed, and our homelands saved. The ruined halls were rebuilt, and the dead could lie at peace, beneath barrows still tended by their kin.

Samir, of course, went on to become the first of the clans to wear a crown. Because of his courage, our people were saved. It would be a foolish lord who tried to challenge him after that! Some tried, of course, because we are who we are. They died.

With the halls rebuilt and the enemy repulsed, many wondered what Samir would do next. With his own house in order, would he turn once more against Gondor? Some lord counselled that he should do so. Some, proud and arrogant, even proposed to ride against Gondor by themselves.

But once again, Samir had the courage to take a chance on peace. To hold the clans together at a time of war was to walk the easier road. Samir chose the harder. He chose the path of peace. Many now speak harshly of him, and accuse him of squandering the ancient pride of our people, and turning us into mere allies of Gondor's king. But they are blind. Samir was indeed great, the first and greatest of our people's kings.


	26. The Gift

**Chapter twenty-six: The Gift**

From _Captains of the West_ by Faramir of Lamedon, F.A. 831

The war was short, and soon it was over. As I have said before, history is the story of great men, and the proper occupation for great men is war. The people of Rohan once knew this, and sang many songs of battle, but in recent centuries, they have become altogether too fond of peace. They still sing of war, but more often, they sing of green fields and proud horses.

Many of my fellow historians like to write about such things. They pass over battles and squander all their words on peace. They trace the development of farming techniques and building styles and clothing. They are interested in ordinary people. When they write about kings, they write about the tedious business that they must attend to in peace time. They write about laws and the management of royal households. They write about politics: war without honour or glory.

But this is not my tale. I have told you of battles and troop movements. I have described how Elessar ordered his army, and what Éomer said to his men before their charge. I have related how Faramir coordinated the defence of the coastal fiefs and how Imrahil and the other lords commanded their levies. I have told how Umbar was defeated.

Umbar was defeated. What more is there to tell?

* * *

They were standing ten deep in the streets of Osgiliath and spilled across the fields of the Pelennor. "They have come to see _us_ , of course," Éomer had told his men, when they had first caught sight of the crowd that awaited them. A thousand fine Riders of the Riddermark, fresh from their triumph! Truly it was a sight worth travelling for!

Flowers were thrown in his path, and he urged his horse to the side, trying to avoid trampling them. He wished he could scoop them up and bring a thrill to the heart of whatever maiden had thrown them, but it was impossible from the saddle. Then a spring of blossom arced above him, and he darted out a hand and caught it, grinning.

Perhaps he ought to be solemn. Aragorn rode beside him in calm dignity, like a carved statue of an ancient king. But then Aragorn saw Éomer looking at him, and he, too, smiled. Éomer tried to stop himself, but could not. He laughed. The crowd liked it, though, but whether they were cheering his laughter or their king's smile, Éomer did not know.

He heard singing behind him: his own men, singing the songs they had already written about this war. Two battles had they fought, one against the strike force that was coming in from the river, and one a mighty charge into the flank of the main army from Umbar. It was the sort of battle that the Eorlingas loved: swift, decisive and dominated by a glorious charge of horses. They had lost only a handful; only a handful of names for sorrowful singing in the lists of the dead.

And now they were returning home, back to the fields that they tended; back to the crops that they were free to raise, now that the threat of Sauron was gone. They were riding with Éomer almost to Minas Tirith, and then taking the long road home. As for Éomer, he would stay in Gondor for a while. He had come here to visit his friends and his sister. He would have spent time in Emyn Arnen, and he would have visited Imrahil by the sea. No time for that now, but at least he would have some time in Minas Tirith in peace, before he and the hobbits headed home. Lothíriel's babe would be born before the start of autumn, and he missed her more with every day.

The hobbits were here now. Along with Éowyn and Faramir, they had ridden out to Osgiliath the evening before, to share in the triumph. Although they had been forced to stay in the city, they had fought great battles of their own. The army from the Brown Lands had returned, and although they had not drawn their swords in anger, they, too, would receive the cheers of the crowd.

Éomer whipped his sword from its scabbard, and held it aloft in the sunlight, gleaming. He was at the heart of a sea of cheering. Behind him in the procession, even the hobbits were cheering, too. Éomer laughed again, and perhaps it wasn't the dignified behaviour the people of Gondor expected from a king, but what did it matter? He was who he was. He was Lord of the Eorlingas, and he was returning from war. He was Lord of the Eorlingas, and his people were returning home to reap the fruits of peace.

* * *

Bedir had never seen the king of Gondor. Sixty years ago, his face had been hidden by the gloom of the cave. Now all faces were hidden by Bedir's near blindness. But he did not need to see him to know him. He had learnt how to judge people by the things that they said and the way that they said them, and he could see the king of Gondor very well, he thought.

His inability to see the city of Minas Tirith was a greater blow. When the sun shone fiercely upon it, he saw the white glow of her walls. He could see that her gate was black and glistening, but he only knew that she was as tall as a mountain because he had climbed the snaking path that led from the gate to the Citadel at the top. Even there, he was not at the highest point of the city. He walked through a patch of cool shadow, and they told him that it was the shadow cast by the Tower of Ecthelion, reaching up to the sky.

But today he was down on the plain again. Birds were singing, and he could hear the wind whispering through leaves. In the distance, people were singing: farmers, the king told him, busy with their work. These were the fields of the Pelennor, once more ripe with crops and orchards.

Fourteen years before, they had been a grave.

Bedir walked alone, following a hedgerow with the tips of his fingers. Hedgerows were as new to him as orchards. At home, hunting grounds were delineated by natural landmarks: rocks and outcrops and the gaps between hills. They were fluid things, shifting as the clans fought. Here in Gondor, the people tamed the land and settled on it. They forced shrubs to grow in straight lines and used them to mark the boundaries of their land.

 _How strange,_ he thought, _and I would never have known about it, if I hadn't come here._ It had never even occurred to him to wonder how people elsewhere in the world marked out their land. He would have lived and died without knowing the word 'hedgerow,' and although it might seem like such an unimportant thing, he thought that his life would have been poorer without that knowledge. And hedgerows were just the start of it. He had discovered fountains, dabbling his hand in a shower of water made by men purely for their pleasure. He had run his fingers up and down the delicate stem of something called a goblet, made from blown glass. He had listened to an instrument called a flute, more smooth and delicate than the pipes of home.

Small things, of course. Tiny things. But a thousand small things, taken together, defined a people. For years, he had heard stories about the men of the west. Everyone knew that their ways were barbaric and strange, but at the same time, Bedir knew that if he asked any one of his clan what the men of Gondor drank out of, they would assume they used a vessel just like their own.

"You're different from us," he said.

"Not much," said the king of Gondor.

Bedir stopped, feeling the shape of a single leaf, rubbing a cluster of berries with his thumb. "Yes," he said. "Different. Different in oh so many ways." But the same in many others, of course. Whether they used a flute or pipes, both their peoples sang. They both drank wine, although Bedir's people did so from beakers. Their blades were different, but they both fought.

"But does it matter?" asked the king of Gondor. "Does it have to lead to enmity between us?"

Bedir took another step. The hedgerow came to an end, and his cheek was touched by a breath of wind. It brought with it whispers. Long habit made him close his eyes, although it was years now since he had seen anything other than blurs. Was this the touch of the restless dead? He had never been able to feel them, although there were some who said that they could. He had never been able to hear them, although sometimes the wind went wailing through the trees. When he had begun to lose his sight, he had thought for a while that he could see them, as strange shadows had swirled in his eyes.

There were no shadows now, just the near darkness that he had lived with for so long. Yet he believed that the dead were there. No, he knew it. They had not died in any cause that he would claim as his own. They had marched here under Sauron's banner, while Bedir had endured exile rather than bow to such a lord. He believed that their cause was wrong, but most of them had had no choice but to follow their lords. And right or wrong, they were still his people. They were his people, and they had died far from home, and would wander forever, lost.

"Be at peace," he murmured. He raised his hands, inviting them in. "I am Bedir…" Bedir of the Red Sun, he almost said, but it was time to say goodbye to all that. All the clans were distant kin from afar, and one day soon, if Samir got his way, they would be one people again. These dead were not Bedir's clan, but they would flock to him, he thought: the first voice in fourteen years that spoke their tongue.

"Be at peace," he said, as he crouched down. The king of Gondor had given him a casket, and Bedir filled it with earth scooped from the fields where his people had fallen. When his year in Gondor had ended, he would scatter it on the barrows of each clan, a pinch on every one.

"Be at peace," he whispered, as the wind stroked his cheek one more, and then faded away. All was still and silent; just the distant sound of singing and the liquid music of the birds.

"But some things are the same," Bedir found himself saying, just because he needed quite desperately to hear a living voice reply. His voice sounded hoarse, and he cleared his throat. "You and Samir are not that very different, I think."

"How so?" asked the king of Gondor. He touched Bedir, too, a quick, firm touch on the shoulder.

It was what he needed. When Bedir spoke again, his voice was no longer hoarse. "In some things, anyway," Bedir said. "I have keen hearing. I heard how those guard captains of yours wanted to come with us today in case the old, frail, blind man should suddenly try to kill you. I heard how you dealt with them. You were entirely polite, but you told them in no uncertain terms that you were coming out here alone. Why shouldn't you? After all, you _are_ king." He smiled ruefully. "Samir would have been the same, but less polite, of course."

The king said nothing, but Bedir wondered if he had offended him. There were doubtless nuances of interaction that he was yet to understand. He had only scratched the surface of the realities of Gondor and her king.

But he had a year to learn them. News of Samir's victory in the east had reached Minas Tirith just yesterday. His homeland was safe, or would be. Everything depended on what Samir chose to do next, of course, but Bedir thought that he would honour the truce. No, he vowed, he would make sure of it. He would spend this year making sense of Gondor. He would turn them from a faceless enemy into friends, and then he would go home with his casket of earth and his tales of goblets and hedgerows; with pictures of the city, and stories of the folk who lived there.

 _Be at peace,_ he thought, but this time, he saw not the dead, but the living: the people of Gondor and his own people alike.

* * *

At length, Mínir was well enough to go outside, but not well enough to go far. He didn't join the crowds that flocked to the squares and fountains to hear the heralds announce victory, but he heard the cheering. He stayed in the Houses of Healing, although he was probably well enough to leave. He asked the healers if they needed his bed, but they seemed happy for him to stay. "Most of the rash young men have gone off fighting," one of them explained. "Fewer left behind to have silly accidents which they expect us to patch up afterwards." By his tone, it was clear that they classed Mínir as one of these rash young men. Mínir smiled, but he stayed.

Letters started arriving in Minas Tirith. Mínir was not without visitors, and they told him all about it. Such-and-such a woman had received a letter from her husband, saying that he was quite well, not even the slightest wound. She had cried aloud with relief, dropping her basket of oranges right there in the street. Someone else had danced in the street when they got the news that their son was coming home.

"Good," said Mínir. "That's good."

They brought him other news, too, of course. He had no friends outside his trade. Although he went out drinking with them sometimes, these were still men who came to him for orders. They were still men who brought him news, and were paid for their vigilance with coin. And so they ensured that as he recovered, he was kept properly up-to-date with all the happenings in the seedier parts of the city.

He listened, nodded, and forgot almost all of it as soon as they walked away.

There were three of them with him today. They were outside in the garden, and Mínir had quite deliberately chosen to sit in the middle of the lawn, basking in the full sun. All too often, his job took him to dark places, and kept him there. Even in daylight, it was a shadow part that he played, but for today, let him have the sun!

He was slow to notice Lainor arriving, and almost missed him completely. Lainor had made it half way across the lawn, had seen that Mínir had friends with him, and was about to turn and walk away, assuming that Mínir wouldn't want to speak to him.

Mínir beckoned him over, and Lainor joined them, sitting awkwardly on the grass. Conversation stuttered on for a while, until one by the one, the others wished him well, and left. I'm sorry," Lainor said, when only the two of them remained. "I didn't mean to drive your friends away."

"You didn't," Mínir said, then decided that honesty was best. They had been too little honesty in his life these last few years. "Well, you did in a way, but I don't mind. Do you know what I am? What part I play?"

Lainor shook his head. He was toying with a blade of grass, twisting it around his finger, then letting it spring free. "You said you came on the king's business." It was said tentatively, almost as a question.

"I did," said Mínir. "I do. You see, there are some threats of Gondor that the king and Lord Faramir can't confront openly. Some can be fought with armies and swords. But others… Others _can't_. Some threats come in the form of spies, men who disguise themselves and cause trouble in the shadows. An army is no use there. A company of shiny soldiers can't sniff out such a spy."

"But you can," Lainor said, still playing with the blade.

"Sometimes." Mínir gave a wry smile. "But it's not just spies, not just threats against Gondor itself. It's smaller things, too. Gondor should be a place where people can walk in peace, without fear of attack. It doesn't matter if the person who attacks them is an enemy from Umbar, or their own neighbour with evil in their heart. It shouldn't happen. Armies can't stop it."

"But you can," Lainor said again. This time he said it with confidence, no question in his voice.

Mínir laughed; he couldn't help it. "And those 'friends' of mine are people like me. They were busy reporting snippets of intelligence they have gleaned from lurking in unsavoury inns and standing at street corners with their ears flapping. It's not the sort of talk they want to be overheard." Especially not by a man who had been the target of their attention for many days; a man who even now, they doubtless suspected.

"Oh." The blade of grass snapped, and Lainor started again on another one. "I tried to go with the army," he said. "Did you know that?"

They had told him, yes. It was one of the few reports he remembered, but he said nothing, just shook his head.

"I thought…" Another blade snapped. "I thought if I joined, I could…" He didn't finish. He didn't need to. Mínir what it was like to seek redemption from a past mistake. Lainor shook his head. "They turned me down. They said it wasn't like the last time, when they needed every able-bodied man. This time they just wanted men with military experience; men who done their forty days' service every year. They smiled as they said it; said it as if it was a good thing, because it showed that things weren't that bad, that they weren't desperate."

Mínir wondered what to say. He wondered what would help. Last time they had needed every able-bodied man, Lainor had said, not realising that he was talking to an able-bodied man who had hidden when the call had gone out. At least Lainor had answered the call, even if he had subsequently run away. "But you tried," he said at last. "You didn't have to, but you tried. That's what matters, isn't it?"

"That's what matters." Lainor had plucked another blade of grass, and was shredding it, his fingers smeared with green.

"And I know what happened," Mínir said. "When I was being…" He half raised his hand to his head. He remembered so little. It wasn't something he liked to talk about. "When _this_ happened… You ran _towards_ it. You could have run away. You could have stayed where you were; assumed that somebody else would be dealing with it. That's what most people would have done. But you ran towards it, and got hurt yourself as a result."

Lainor's face twisted with pain. "But you were only there because I sent for you. You must think that-"

"No." Mínir stopped him. "It wasn't anything to do with you. I know that." It wasn't entirely true, of course. It was not something that he knew for sure, merely something that he believed.

"But…" Lainor protested.

"No." Mínir shook his head, and pressed his hand to his face, fingers kneading his brow between the eyes. Oh, but he was weary! He was a man of the shadows, who sniffed out secrets and acted alone. He was someone who listened, not someone who spoke. He wasn't the sort of person that everyone listened to; a person that people came to when they needed comfort and advice. And yet here he was… "Put it behind you," he said. "It's hard, I know. Put it behind you, and carry on."

It was the only thing to do. Mínir himself had languished in bitterness and regret for three years. The king himself had been the one to set him right, but it was too much to hope for that to happen again. This time, Mínir had to find his own way out. And he could do it, he thought. How had he failed this time? All he had done was lower his guard for a moment, and let the king's token get taken from him. But his was a dangerous line of work, and he was no soldier. If he was constantly looking over his shoulder for an attack, he would get nothing done. And no lasting harm had been done by it. Lord Faramir himself had made that very clear.

"Carry on," Lainor said. _But how?_ his eyes said.

"I could offer you a job," Mínir said, "if…"

He trailed away. Lainor's head snapped up. "You'd trust me with that? Even now?"

"I'd trust you," Mínir said. "There's not much coin in it. Some men work for me all the time, while others work in other trades, but keep their ears open as they do it."

"I…" Lainor closed his eyes. He let out a breath, then opened his eyes again, looking up at the treetops where small birds darted. "I'm a weaver," he said. "I should…" Another long sigh. "No, I want. I want to be a weaver again. I want to go back."

Mínir wondered whether to say it. He wondered if it was even true. But then he found himself saying it, even so. "Everyone I know sniffs out secrets for me. It would be nice to have a friend who talks about other things once in a while. A whole evening hearing about the finer points of weaving, while downing a few pints…" He chuckled. "There's an appeal in that."

"A friend?" said Lainor.

Mínir smiled, and lay back in the grass, looking up at the vast blue sky. _Why not?_ he thought.

* * *

Daerion woke up one morning, and found that he had made his decision.

Was it because he had been wounded, they asked him. He shook his head, although he knew that he could have defended himself better if he had been ten years younger. He was slow to heal, too, and even a month later, he found that he wearied fast.

Was it because he had let himself get attacked, and thereby caused the people of Gondor to doubt their own defences? Nobody said as much out loud, and perhaps he was the only one thinking it. But that wasn't the reason, either.

It was just that he was old, too old to be a soldier. They were at peace again now, and he hoped that no enemy armies would come within a hundred leagues of the Great Gate of Minas Tirith. He wanted the job to be a peaceful one, without its holder ever needing to draw his sword in anger, or order the gate to be barred and defended. But even though he hoped that the Captain of the Great Gate would never have to draw his sword, he knew that he needed to be young enough and fit enough to draw it.

 _And I'm tired,_ he thought, _and I've given so many years._

He had come close to the decisions weeks ago, but then the king had been attacked, and he hadn't wanted to walk away when Gondor was in need. And in truth, he had clung to his rank. This had been his life for so many years. He was Captain of the Great Gate, and there were young men in his company who had never known anyone else to hold the post. It was part of him. For over fifty years, his life had been shaped by his oath to Gondor.

That oath still bound him. It bound him to do what was best for Gondor, even if it cost him bitter pangs of regret. But now he thought that the pangs would not be bitter, merely bittersweet. He could spend whole days in his family's tavern, surrounded by his great-nephews and nieces. He could sit there dozing in the sunshine, and when the horns blew for the change of watch, he could open one lazy eye, and sit there dozing still.

Ah yes, he thought, the decision was made. It was a bittersweet one, perhaps, but he would not regret it.

* * *

Sunlight woke her, as it so often did. Éowyn sat up and threw off the blankets. She swung her feet off the bed, placing them on the floor where she had killed a man. Faramir was still asleep beside her. _Good,_ she thought, remembering those dark days when she had usually woken to find that Faramir was already up and working hard. He looked comfortable, too, his wounds healed and no longer paining him.

Éowyn had accepted Arwen's offer of a guest chamber for just one night. Then, bracing herself, she had returned to their bed chamber. It was necessary to face such things. Everyone who had lived through the War of the Ring had endured dreadful things. Life was about moving past them; about finding the strength to look to the future, rather than to the horrors of the past. Whenever she travelled from Minas Tirith to Emyn Arnen, she saw the place where Théoden had died. She saw it, she lived with it, and she had come to love both Emyn Arnen and Minas Tirith, and the road that ran between them.

But she still found it difficult to shut the curtains around the bed. It was too hot, she told Faramir. The curtains kept the heat in, so why sleep with them closed in the summer? "Why indeed?" he agreed, but with the curtains open, there was nothing to keep out the sunlight. There were gaps around the shutters, and their bed chamber faced east, and caught the first fierce light of early morning.

She stood up and headed for the window. With her robe wrapped around her, she half opened the shutters. A broad strip of sunlight fell across Faramir's face, and he stirred a little, but did not wake. As a Ranger, he had grown accustomed to sleeping outside, of course, while she had spent those same years closeted in Edoras with a failing king.

She looked out at the morning, and her hand went down to her belly, where the babe was beginning to show. _What now?_ she thought. The campaign against Umbar was over. The king was back in Minas Tirith, and the Prince of Ithilien had been too long away from his own domain. Éomer and the hobbits would stay for another week, but then they, too, would need to leave. It was a long journey back to the Shire, and although it was still the height of summer in Gondor, autumn would be well advanced before the hobbits reached home. If they lingered too long, they would risk getting caught by the start of winter.

Lost in thought, she did not hear Faramir getting up. She gasped, startled, when he was suddenly there behind her, wrapping her in his arms. If he felt the sudden pounding of her heart, he spared her, and did not comment.

"The babe is growing fast," he said, his hands moving down to cover hers.

She nodded. It seemed like half a lifetime away, when she had worried about being sent back to Emyn Arnen to see out her pregnancy in quiet seclusion. Now, _I want to go home,_ she thought, and as soon as she thought it, she knew that she meant it.

She had spent her summer close to great events. There had been times when there was nothing she could do, and times when she had made a difference. Faramir had been comforted by her presence, and she had helped him wrestle with some hard decisions. Most important of all - oh, more important than anything! - she had saved her husband's life. The old ladies of Gondor wanted her to be a docile wife, but would a docile noblewoman of Gondor keep a sword by her bed? Would a docile noblewoman of Gondor know how to wield one, and have the nerve to strike? Éowyn was a shield maiden of the Riddermark, and they would never change her.

But she was also a woman of Gondor, and she had chosen this life. She had chosen to lay down her sword and move away from her home and surround herself with gardens in the hills of Emyn Arnen. The shield maiden would always be part of her, but she was also the lady of Emyn Arnen, and she was here by choice.

"I want to go home," she said. "Can we go home to Emyn Arnen?"

"Oh yes!" said Faramir with feeling.

She opened the shutter wider, letting the sunlight in. "The old ladies want me to stay there," she said. "They say it is only proper. But if…" _If I'd been proper, then you might be dead._ She did not say it. "I didn't want to be banished like that," she said, "but I don't want to cause gossip. You have a position to uphold."

"Let them gossip!" Faramir said. "Stay in Emyn Arnen for as long as you wish, but if you want to return to Minas Tirith when you are fat and waddling…" He broke off, laughing, as she slapped his roving hand. "Let them gossip," he said, sobering. "I said as much when I asked you to marry me, and you wondered what they would say about me, that I had chosen a wild shieldmaiden from the north. We live in a new age, and the world is ours for the changing. We can make it the way we want it, now that the war is done."

* * *

The sky had clouded over when the time for leaving came, and a cool wind was blowing in from the river. It was still summer in Gondor, and would be for many weeks, but it was a long journey back to the Shire, and it would be autumn by the time they reached home.

Crowds had gathered in Minas Tirith to see them leave, but perhaps Aragorn had given a discreet command, because few tried to follow them out of the gate. People were labouring in the fields, of course, and they paused in their work to watch the party pass, but Pippin was glad to see them. Normal life continued. Crops still grew on the Pelennor, and just like in the Shire, the farmers of Gondor liked to lean on their spades and watch as travellers went by.

Aragorn and Faramir were riding out with them, with Arwen and Éowyn, Legolas and Gimli. They would only come for a few miles, but when the time came for parting, their farewells would be private.

"It seems like so long ago since we came riding the other way," Pippin said. "Remember that morning when you came sneaking up on us from the trees? When you'd sneaked out of the city in disguise?"

"I do," said Aragorn, "but today there is no need to hide it. I will say farewell to my friends in whatever way I choose."

Pippin smiled at him, then turned away, sighing. So much had happened since they had ridden the other way, but at the same time, it seemed as if they had done hardly anything. Few of the proposed visits had happened. They had spent no time in Emyn Arnen, and they still hadn't visited Legolas in Ithilien. Instead, they had spent the time in Minas Tirith, waiting for news.

But, "I'm glad we came," Pippin said, and he meant it. He really did.

"But you are glad to be going home. Nay," said Aragorn, raising his hand, "there is no need to apologise for that."

"I… _am_ ," said Pippin. "I miss my wife and my little one." _And my own bed,_ he thought, _and the view from my window and the smell of mushrooms frying in the pan._ "But when I'm at home, I miss you all. I miss Gondor. Sometimes I climb to the highest hills in the Shire and I look out to the east, and I wish…"

He trailed away. "It is the way of things," Aragorn said quietly, "when you travel."

What place did Aragorn think of as home? Pippin hadn't thought to wonder that before. Aragorn had been raised in Rivendell and spent much of his life in the north, but now he lived in Gondor. And what about Arwen, who had lived for thousands of years in Rivendell and Lorien, but now lived amongst Men in a stone city in the south?

Ah yes _,_ he thought, it was indeed the way of things when you travelled. He was a hobbit of the Shire, and when he was at home, he would cherish it, and when he was away, he would cherish those friendships he had made so far from home. He had roots in both places now, but it was in the Shire that his roots ran deepest.

"But I don't think I'll be coming back to Gondor for a while," he found himself saying. "I've got a family now, and I don't want to leave them for this long again. And then... And my father is…" He sighed, shaking his head. "I'll be Thain before too many years have passed, I think. It's not a title that means much, but it means _something_ , and I think… I think I should make it mean more."

And he was in a unique position to do so, he thought. Between them, Pippin, Merry and Sam would hold the three chief offices of the Shire, and they had seen both the best and the worst of what the outside world could offer. For too many years, hobbits had hidden themselves away, ignoring the outside world, and ignored by it. Pippin and the others could change all that, introducing the Shire to the delights of the wider world, while ensuring that it retained everything that made it so special.

It was a responsibility, yes. It meant that Pippin could no longer drop everything and ride away to Gondor for half a year. How he had worried about those responsibilities on the long ride south! He had always been the youngest of his group of friends. He didn't feel old enough. Surrounded by men, he didn't feel tall enough. When solemnity was called for, he was prone to smiles and chatter.

But he would do what was needed, and he would enjoy it, he thought. This war with Umbar had reminded him of how precious their way of life was, and how fragile. It deserved to be cherished, and it was worth fighting for. He was no king and no warrior. He was only a hobbit, and his skills were few, but he would do what he could.

They all would, he thought; every one of them who had ridden out today to say their farewells on the road. Every one of them would strive to their best of their ability to build a better world. At times they would sacrifice their own desires to the demands of duty. They would stay at home when they wished to travel, or travel when they wished to stay at home. But they would know that by doing so, they were helping to change the world.

"And what gift could be greater?" he said out loud.

"Greater than what?" asked Merry, coming up beside him.

"Than getting the chance to shape a glorious new Age," Pippin said.

* * *

"Indeed," said Aragorn. "What gift could be greater than that?"

 _What gift could be greater?_ Aragorn thought, when all goodbyes had been said, and Éomer and the hobbits had dwindled into the distance.

The clouds were parting above them, showing stray patches of blue. The sun was still hidden, but when he turned, he saw that it was shining on the walls of Minas Tirith, far across the fields.

It was time to return. The war had ended, but there were many tasks for them all to perform in the aftermath of any war. There was damage to the coastal regions, and there were ships to repair. There were rumours that Corsairs still roamed in Lebennin. There were prisoners to sentence, and stragglers to round up. Scouts had to be sent into the south, to guard against fresh moves from Umbar. There was a truce to be maintained in the east, and one day, perhaps, even friendship.

Éomer and the hobbits had gone, and Faramir would soon return to his own domain. Within weeks, Gimli and Legolas would depart for their own homes. Summer would fade into autumn, and the lords of Gondor would return from their fiefs, ready to resume the politics of peace. But Emyn Arnen was just a stone's throw away. Gimli and Legolas had not yet departed, and it was still summer on the fields of Gondor.

Duty called, as it always did, but there was always a balance to be drawn between duty and desire. There were times when duty came first. All of them, at times, had to bow to the wishes of others, and sacrifice their own wishes for the sake of what needed to be done. But did he not wish to rule over a kingdom in which there was no room for choice. There was no slavery in Gondor. Even the humblest of his subjects, or so he hoped, had times when they could put duty aside and take pleasure in whatever they pleased.

Sunlight was sweeping across the Pelennor, lighting the dark trees one by one, making their leaves shine like jewels. "Shall we take the long way round?" he suggested. An hour spent riding purely for pleasure. An hour spent with good friends. A hour spent in the sunshine in a land that been saved from the ravages of war; a land which, he vowed, would thrive and become glorious.

 _Yes,_ he thought, _what gift could be greater?_

* * *

From _The Shadow of War,_ by Hanion son of Hannor, loremaster of Osgiliath, F.A. 942

Swift though it was, the war with Umbar was a wake-up call for Gondor. It is too much to say that Gondor had grown complacent in the early years of the Fourth Age, because that was far from the truth. The horrors of Sauron's ascendancy were still a recent memory, and there were many wounds to be healed.

However, the people of Gondor have always been resilient. They have always healed quickly, and when a thing cannot be mended, they have learnt to endure it. They were quick, perhaps too quick, to settle down into a life of peace. A new Age dawned. Sauron had fallen, and never again would enemy armies ravage the realm of Gondor now that the king had come again!

It was not true, of course. It was never true. Even in those early years, there were many fierce battles against orcs and other fell creatures who still resided in the wilds. Yet these battles took place in distant hills, and were waged by warriors, and not by levies of ordinary men. The people of Gondor knew that the wild places were being cleansed, but they failed to see how dangerous and challenging the process was. They thought the outcome inevitable. They expected nothing but victories, and for fourteen years, that was what they got.

Maybe complacency is not too strong a term, then. When the so-called "Easterling" assassin was discovered in the heart of Minas Tirith, it rocked Gondor to the core. When the true enemy was revealed, the blow was even worse. In the Corsairs, the people of Gondor faced an old nightmare returned. They were allies of Sauron, and they had thought them gone forever, along with their dark master.

Umbar was swiftly defeated, of course, and peace returned, but the people of Gondor would no longer take that peace for granted. Sauron was gone and they had a king again, but they had learnt that their way of life could still be threatened. It goaded them to take responsibility for their own future. They had found their voice, and never again would they lose it. The future of Gondor lay in their own hands, not just in the hands of the king and the Steward and the great lords of the realm.

It could have made them more warlike, more distrustful, more fierce for revenge. Instead it made them cherish the peace that they had earned. The gates of Minas Tirith remained open, and they took pride in that. When ambassadors came from the east, they welcomed them. Because they knew that peace was fragile, they became determined to preserve it.

They had hoped to see a golden age. Now they resolved to make one.

And they did, of course.

* * *

The end

* * *

 **Note** : Thank you to everyone who's stuck with this to the end, and especially to those who have commented. I haven't been able to reply to all of them, since editing and posting a chapter a day has been quite a hard workload, but I have really appreciated every one.

There will now follow some long and self-indulgent authorly rambling about the writing process.

I first had the idea for this story well over a year ago. The initial idea was for a Fourth Age story told entirely by future historians, many of them biased, and some plain wrong. With their knowledge of the characters, readers would be able to pick their way through the contradictory accounts and piece together the true story.

I quickly realised that although this would be fun as an intellectual exercise, it would probably be rather dull to read, lacking in emotional involvement. I therefore changed the plan to a Fourth Age story that was half "normal" story, and half told by historians.

And that was how it stood for nearly a year. I still had no idea about the plot, merely that it would probably have to involve a war, because I wanted some of the historians to be "enemy" ones. The lack of actual plot ideas and the sheer scale of the thing daunted me, and for months, I did nothing at all.

At length I decided that I just had to bite the bullet and start writing _something._ I came up with the idea of a leader in the east uniting the clans and coming against Gondor, but this not being the true threat. As assassination attempt was going to kick things off, I realised, so I decided to sit down and write the assassination and let the rest of the plot reveal itself as I went along.

I knew nothing about this culture in the east, but as I wrote the viewpoint of the assassin, certain hints emerged. This was when I realised that I needed to write a short story about the "Easterlings" first, in order to develop their culture. Trials of Manhood was the result, incorporating some of those hints, and exploring things much further. It was only afterwards, when the comments started coming in, that I realised that there could be a much closer link between the two stories than I had originally thought.

Returning to this story, I soon realised a problem with my whole "future historians" idea. Historians write from hindsight, but my story was concealing a big secret: the revelation that the clans in the east weren't the true threat. It was quite inhibiting to write those historian scenes without giving away spoilers. After a few chapters, it became clear that the historians would generally be limited to one scene per chapter.

I didn't do a huge amount of planning ahead, although the long sequence between Aragorn and Samir was foreseen – and eagerly anticipated! - from very early on. Everything else just evolved naturally, often surprising me. When the army left Minas Tirith, I jotted down a chronology based on their journey time, and came up with some ideas of things that could happen in the city during that time, but that was the only advance planning I did. Beyond that, I planned on a chapter by chapter basis: little more than bullet points saying who would appear and roughly what I hoped would happen. (I say "hoped," since I have very little control once I hand over to the characters.)

Mablung wasn't going to reappear after his first appearance, but ended up doing so. It hadn't occurred to me to reuse OCs from older stories, until I was struggling with a problem early on the story. I needed a viewpoint character who could wander anonymously through the streets and listen out for gossip: something none of my main canon characters could do. Then I received a comment on Grey in the Dark, wondering what happened to Mínir afterwards, and I realised that Mínir was just who I needed. Once I'd included him, it seemed impolite not to include Daerion, too.

The story entirely took over my brain for a few months. May was particularly tough, since I was going away for the whole of the final week, and couldn't bear the thought of going away with it not quite finished. However, I was away every weekend for the month before that - rather appropriately, one weekend was spent at the 25 year reunion of my old university's Tolkien Society - so there was a _lot_ of early morning writing in hotels that month, sitting on the floor in a dark room trying to get at least one scene written before breakfast. But I made it, finishing it a couple of days before I went away, for which there was much rejoicing.

So, anyway, thanks to everyone who's read and reviewed! I loved writing this (although it was rather overwhelming at times) and I hope you enjoyed reading it.


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